


Awake And Arise

by aewgliriel



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Legends: Legacy Era - All Media Types
Genre: Cunnilingus, Doggy Style, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Het, Heterosexual Sex, Oral Sex, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-14
Updated: 2016-02-22
Packaged: 2018-05-13 20:57:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 33,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5716840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aewgliriel/pseuds/aewgliriel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alternate Universe. On a mission for Luke Skywalker, Kyp Durron and Jaina Solo encounter an anomaly that sends them hurtling into a strange new reality where they never existed, and the First Order seeks the extinction of the Jedi. Contains spoilers for "The Force Awakens".</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"Awake, arise, or be for ever fall'n."

\-- John Milton, _Paradise Lost_

 

**\--Chapter One--**

Near the edges of space where the Western Reaches met the Unknown Regions, two StealthX fighters dropped out of hyperspace to recalculate the next jump in their long journey, from Ossus to Bakura.

“Okay, I was trying not to say anything, but I have to. I _really_ had enough of Bakura during the Vong war,” Jaina Solo said, via comms, to her wingmate. “Why is Uncle Luke sending us there again?”

“He wasn't all that specific,” Kyp Durron replied. “Just said that he got a message from someone named Malinza Thanas, and since he can't go, what with dealing with Daala and all-”

“Malinza Thanas?” Jaina swore. Her irritation at her uncle reached Kyp where he sat a few dozen meters off her port side.

“What? Who is she?”

“Remember when I was on Bakura with my parents, and I nearly died and there was that whole mess with Tahiri?”

“... Vaguely.” A little more than vaguely, since Jaina had excitedly told him not long after that Jag had said those three little words to her, and she in return, and it had been a gut stab to the Jedi Master. But he didn't let on.

“Thanas was the brat that got me into that mess.”

“Oh.”

“Which is probably why Luke told you and not me, because if he'd told me before we left Ossus, I would never have got in my fighter.”

Kyp’s voice was wry. “Probably, yes. Though why he's sending _us_ is a mystery to me. We're not the most diplomatic in the Order.”

“Yeah, we're the ones he sends when he needs something bludgeoned.” Jaina made a frustrated sound.

“What's taking so long with those calculations?” Kyp asked his astromech.

The droid tweedled a reply.

“What do you mean, anomalous readings? Where?”

An unseen shockwave rocked the two X-Wings, sending Kyp’s droid into a screech of terror.

“Kyp, _my_ readings say-” Jaina’s voice cut out in a burst of static.

\----------

Jaina watched in horrified fascination as an energy field the size of a star rippled out of the nothingness before them, vaguely blue at the edges and black in the middle.

“Is that a black hole?” she asked herself. “That can't be.”

“Reverse thrusters!” Kyp ordered over the comms, and Jaina snapped to attention, flipping switches and yanking up on the throttle.

They almost made it.

The gravitational pull was too great, and both fighters were yanked into the field as it buckled and folded. There was a bright flash-

The next few moments were a confused scramble, as the two Jedi found themselves hurtling straight into a firefight between X-Wings and TIE fighters. Reflexively, Jaina fired back at a TIE that shot at her, and pulled her fighter into a tight spiral away from the main battle. In the distance, a dying star gave a last, pathetic flicker and then went cold, plunging everything in the system into darkness.

“What the kriff?” she demanded of Kyp, who had mirrored her move.

“No idea, Sticks. Watch it, tin can on your six.”

They could have avoided the comms, but needed them to monitor what was suddenly going on around them. That, unfortunately, made them visible to the TIEs swarming around them. Jaina was too busy fighting to devote much attention to the question of what, exactly, had just happened, or what was going on.

She flipped her fighter around and blasted the enemy ship before it could properly target her. “Transponders on the enemy aren't broadcasting as Imperial Remnant,” she told her partner. “They're something else. And there's a Super over there.”

Kyp clicked in acknowledgement, too busy to verbally respond as he fought to shake off his own tail. After he'd shot it down, he asked, “Loverboy didn't mention anything going on in this area, did he?”

She narrowed her eyes at her controls. “No, Head of State Fel did not inform me of any Imperial activities in this sector. Given I haven't spoken to him in four months, I don't know if he would have anyway.”

Her astromech informed her that there was chatter on a commonly-used New Republic frequency, so she clicked over to catch it.

“Red Four, Red Six, cover me. I'm going in.”

“Good luck, Poe,” another voice replied.

Jaina turned her attention to the fight below, and her eyes widened in horror. The planet beneath them had been converted into some sort of superweapon, with an emitter bigger than the Super Star Destroyer in orbit around it.

“Oh, Force, Kyp, what the Sithspawn _is_ that?” Jaina asked, flipping back to their private frequency.

“No idea. But whoever Poe is, he just made it go boom.”

When the Millennium Falcon shot past her, followed by a dozen or so X-Wings, she jolted in surprise. The last time she'd seen her dad’s ship, it had been painted grey, not the original sandy color. But its transponder said it was the Falcon, alright.

“I got eyes on ‘em!” came the voice of the unknown Poe. “Let's go home.”

The planet visibly cracked, heat and flames erupting from deep below the surface through the weapon. The TIE fighters abruptly abandoned the fight and retreated for the Super Star Destroyer. Jaina instructed Rowdy, her astromech, to scan the planet.

To Kyp, she said, “Rowdy says the core of the planet has begun to-”

Before she could finish, the planet exploded in a huge fireball, sending out plasma and solar flares. Jaina whipped her fighter around, Kyp right on her starboard, and accelerated away as fast as she could at sublight speeds.

“Do that,” she finished lamely.

Coordinates fed into her navicomp. Jaina felt a mental question from Kyp, sent back a “Why not?” This was suddenly much more important than whatever Malinza Thanas wanted, in Jaina's mind. They could come back here if they needed to, but with the planet suddenly a new star--and how did _that_ happen?--getting away seemed a wise course.

With a shrug, she told the computer to accept the coordinates and make the jump.

\----------

They dropped out of hyperspace above a lush, green planet with a semi-tropical forest over most of it, the poles covered in icier conditions. Jaina rapidly did a scan of the planet, while consulting her navicomp’s databank and archives.

Then she started, a shock running through her. She flipped the frequency of her comm to ship-to-ship with Kyp’s StealthX. “So, uh. Problem.”

“What's that?”

“Navicomp says Ileenium system. Specifically, D’Qar.”

There was a long pause from her fellow Jedi. “Uh. Wasn't D’Qar destroyed by the Vong shortly before that battle on Ylesia?”

“Yeah. There's something seriously off, Kyp, and I don't just mean whatever that rift was we got sucked into.” Jaina eyed the other X-Wings as they descended to the planet. “For one, the Falcon wasn't with us on that run to Bakura.”

“No, it wasn't.” The Jedi Master sounded grim. “Be on your guard.”

“Don't have to tell me twice.”

\----------

They followed the squadron down to the planet’s surface. Jaina landed next to Kyp at the edges of the airfield, outside of a vegetation-covered building made of dark stone, and sat for a moment, watching the bustle. Eventually, she popped the canopy and hopped down, using the Force to assist. Kyp did the same.

Turning to the Falcon, they watched as a young woman and a tall Wookiee left the freighter, the Wookiee carrying an unconscious man. Jaina blinked, then nudged Kyp in the side.

“Hey, Durron… What am I looking at?”

“... Chewbacca.”

“Oh, good, I'm not hallucinating.”

The Wookiee followed the medical team, leaving the young woman by the Falcon’s ramp. A familiar figure cut through the crowd and went to her, making Jaina start.

“Mom!” she blurted.

But Leia Organa didn't hear or even notice her. She just went to the unknown woman and hugged her.

“Something is very kriffed here,” Kyp muttered. “Who's the girl? Where's Han?”

Leia pulled away from the girl and turned. As she did, she caught sight of the pair standing to one side. Her brown eyes narrowed and she scanned them in their dark flightsuits, gaze fixing on the lightsaber hanging at Jaina’s waist. She strode toward them, the girl following in her wake.

“You two,” she said. “Who are you? I don't know you.”

Kyp’s hand went to the small of Jaina’s back in silent support. The young woman beside Leia had obviously felt the wave of anguish that had shot through Jaina, and she looked between them with big hazel eyes. Jaina’s mouth opened but she obviously struggled to respond.

“Kyp Durron,” he said, drawing Leia’s attention. “And this is Jaina… Durron.”

She was going to strangle him later, but it had been the only thing he could think of, not wanting to say “Solo”. In fact, she'd turned her warm brown eyes to him and was giving him a look that should have fried him where he stood.

“You're Jedi,” Leia stated. “Aren't you? Are you Luke’s? How did you escape?”

Kyp and Jaina exchanged looks. Then Jaina said, “I think this is a conversation we'd best have in private. But first, um… Where's Han Solo? That's his ship, the _Millennium Falcon_.”

A look of pain came over Leia’s features, and the young woman grabbed her arm. “Ah… I suppose you hadn't heard. Han was … Killed recently, by the First Order.”

Jaina took a step back, bumping into Kyp, and he caught her hand. Her shock and grief were palpable. “Killed? What? First Order?” she echoed. Nothing made sense, and the grief rolling off of Leia was like a fog, threatening to suck them in much as that strange energy field had.

Leia stared hard at her. Kyp privately wondered how she seemed so calm on the surface, when she was such a roil of torment below. “I think we _do_ need to have that conversation. Rey, I think you should come with us.”

Kyp shrugged and motioned for them to lead the way.

\----------

As they entered the base, Kyp was calm but cautious and guarded. Jaina edged closer to him as they followed Leia and Rey, who carried a familiar lightsaber stuffed in her belt, into the low stone structure. Kyp kept his hand at Jaina’s elbow, worried by the emotions she was trying to keep hidden but couldn't.

What was going on? Han was dead. Luke wasn't here. There were no other Jedi. The only Force sensitives Kyp could sense besides Jaina were Leia, this Rey, and a pilot they passed in one of the corridors.

Leia paused when they encountered the pilot. “Poe, a moment?”

He stopped, rotated on one boot, and snapped a salute. “Yes, General?”

“Come with me for a minute.”

Whoever Poe was, besides the pilot from before, he fell into step behind the two Jedi. Once inside what was apparently Leia’s office, he leaned against the wall by the door.

Leia pulled a blaster from a drawer and aimed it across the desk. Her eyes were steely. “The Jedi are all dead. Are you Ren’s Knights?” she demanded.

Kyp held up his hands, projecting calm and assurance towards Leia. “I can honestly say I have no idea who Ren is or what you're talking about.”

Leia gestured with the blaster. “Where did you get those lightsabers?”

“I made mine,” Jaina told her. “Kyp got his from a fellow student who died, back at-”

She stopped and sighed. “Let's start over. I'm Jaina Solo, Jedi Knight, and this is Jedi Master Kyp Durron.”

“Solo,” Leia repeated. “As in Han Solo.”

Jaina nodded. “As in, my parents are Han and Leia Solo.”

Everyone stared at her except Kyp. He kept his eyes on the pilot, whose hand kept edging closer to his blaster.

“Excuse me?” Leia asked in a soft, dangerous voice. “I don't have a daughter.”

“Apparently, not here, you don't. Um. Thing is? Kyp and I were out near Bakura, on a mission for Luke Skywalker, when we encountered… an anomaly. Our fighters got pulled into what appeared to be a… Fissure in space. I'm guessing it was a temporal rift. We found ourselves, on the other side of it, in the middle of a big battle near a dying star. When the coordinates went through on a Republic frequency to our navicomputers, we ended up here. Thing is, where Kyp and I are from? D’Qar was destroyed almost fifteen years ago.”

Rey turned in confusion to Leia. “But Luke Skywalker is missing. How can they know him?”

Poe straightened. “That is the stupidest story I've ever heard. Seriously?”

Leia held up a hand to him. To Jaina, she said, “You're telling me you're from an alternate reality?”

“Yes.” Jaina gestured to the lightsaber Rey carried. “That lightsaber belonged to my uncle, Luke, before he lost it at Bespin. He got it back shortly before I was born, and he gave it to a woman named Mara Jade, who he later married. She… Died a few years ago at the hands of a Sith Lord named Caedus.”

“How do we know you're telling the truth?” Poe asked.

“You don't,” Kyp said. “There's no one here to vouch for us.”

“I say we lock them up til we can verify this,” the pilot said. He drew his blaster.

Having been ready for the move, Kyp gestured briefly and yanked the blaster out of Poe’s hands with the Force. “You can _t_ _ry_ , but it won't go well.”

Poe and Leia were suddenly focused on him, their body language telling him that they had recognized the casual threat in his voice, and realized he was the most dangerous thing in the room.

Rey, on the other hand, practically vibrated with excitement. “I did that!” she exclaimed. “Against Kylo Ren!”

“Who's Kylo Ren?” Kyp asked.

“He's an evil son of a Hutt who works for the First Order, pet of Supreme Leader Snoke,” Poe said. He glanced at Leia, as she sat heavily in her chair. “You guys _really_ don't know this stuff, do you?”

“Really.” Kyp ejected the blaster cartridge and pocketed it before tossing the useless weapon back to Poe. “I'm going to take a wild guess and say the First Order is equivalent to our Imperial Remnant.”

“Yes, I suppose they are,” Leia said after a moment. She studied Jaina with new eyes. “You look like me, when I was younger. Except… I can see Han in you.”

Jaina unzipped her flight suit and pulled out the blaster pistol she'd carried for several years. “Do you recognize this?” she asked the older woman.

Leia took it from her, looking amazed. “This is Han’s blaster. but he had it with him, when he- Where did you get it?”

“Dad gave it to me when I was knighted,” Jaina told her. “Back during the Yuuzhan Vong war.”

“The what?” Poe asked.

“In our reality,” Kyp said, and had to pause at how strange it was. “We were invaded by a race called the Yuuzhan Vong. They conquered half the galaxy before we defeated them. Lost a lot of people, over three hundred trillion. Half the Jedi, too. That was almost twenty years ago.”

“Was that what happened to D’Qar?” Rey asked.

Jaina nodded. “They selected it as one of the breeding planets for their ships. It's a very long and complicated story. I lost a brother during the war. Darth Caedus killed the other, before I defeated him.”

Leia’s head jerked up. “How many siblings do you have?”

“None, now. Anakin died when I was eighteen, Jacen died… A little over a year ago.” Jaina’s hand went to her lightsaber and she gripped it for a moment.

Leia sat back in her chair, the blaster forgotten. “Anakin.”

“After my grandfather.”

Leia’s gaze flicked to Rey, and she said, “Rey, why don't you go check on Finn? I'm sure they've got him stabilized by now. Poe, show her where the hospital wing is. She should get checked out while you're there.”

“Yes, General.”

Rey and Poe left. Leia motioned Kyp and Jaina to take seats, which they did.

“I didn't believe you until you mentioned Anakin,” she said. “Only a few people know even now that Anakin Skywalker was my father.”

“Also Darth Vader,” Jaina said.

“Yes. He was. Kylo Ren-” She stopped and closed her eyes. “Kylo Ren killed Han. It happened shortly before you came through the rift. That battle was to destroy the Starkiller Base.”

“What's that?” Kyp asked.

“A very big weapon that fired … I'm not sure what you'd call it, precisely. It sucked in the energy of the sun and redirected it to destroy planets. They destroyed the Hosnian system a few days ago.”

Jaina looked at Kyp. “Suncrusher?”

“Or Centerpoint Station,” he remarked.

“What are those?” Leia asked.

“Weapons we’ve had to destroy,” Jaina said. “The Suncrusher made suns go nova. Centerpoint was a giant, planet-destroying laser.”

Leia frowned. “This would be a little of both, I suppose. Rey, the girl you just met, was taken by Kylo Ren. He fancies himself a Sith. He was Luke’s apprentice until Snoke got his hooks in him. Han went to get Rey.”

“She's Force-sensitive,” Kyp stated.

Jaina was quiet for a moment, looking at Leia. “She's Luke's daughter.”

“... Yes.”

“She doesn't know, does she?”

Leia shook her head. “Please don't tell her. She needs to hear that from my brother.”

“Won't hear it from either of us,” Jaina said.

The general stood. “I don't know _how_ you got here, but we could certainly use your help while you're here. At the moment, I can't devote any resources to helping you find your way home. I'm in the middle of a war and trying to find my brother.”

“We’ll help how we can.” Kyp put his hand on Jaina's arm. “Rey said Luke is missing, that the Jedi are dead.”

“One of Luke's students, his personal apprentice…”

“The Kylo Ren you mentioned,” Jaina said.

“Yes. Only that wasn't his name then. He fell under the influence of Supreme Leader Snoke, who wants to destroy the New Republic and bring the Empire back. He turned several of Luke's students against the others. Luke survived, as did Rey. I'm not sure how Rey ended up on Jakku, but Luke left to go find the first Jedi Temple. He felt he'd failed, and… sent himself into exile, I suppose.”

“And left the galaxy to deteriorate?” Kyp snorted.

Jaina jabbed him. “I'm not sure what help we can provide. I don't know why we're here, or how, or…”

She sighed. “I feel like I'm having a very weird, bad dream.”

“I know what you mean.” Leia studied her in silence for a moment, then looked to Kyp. “I have to go see to some things. You're welcome to make yourselves at home. I'll probably have you bunk with Rey and Poe, respectively, unless you'd prefer together…”

It took a moment for Jaina to get Leia's meaning. She took a big step sideways, away from Kyp, cheeks pink.

“With Rey is fine,” she said.

Kyp fought the urge to stick his tongue out at her.


	2. Chapter 2

**\--Chapter Two--**

After retrieving their flight bags and their astromechs, they each took showers and then met in the barracks hallway, dressed in their Jedi robes. They hadn't had much with them in the way of luggage, after all. As Leia had said, Jaina was assigned a room with Rey, and Kyp was bunking with Poe. The Resistance pilot was affable about it, simply pointing out that his previous roommate had died at Starkiller Base, so the bed was free.

“This is so strange,” Jaina said, looking around as they made their way towards the mess. “It feels like Borleias, doesn't it?”

“Kinda.” Kyp stepped behind her so a Bothan could pass them. “I keep thinking I'm going to wake up at any second, but the longer it goes on, the more I'm beginning to realize this is actually happening.”

“I know.”

They took a right and came across what appeared to be the command center. There was a commotion, with a very familiar pair of droids right in the middle of it. The Jedi stepped in, curious to see what was going on.

A blue and white astromech, the sight of whom filled Jaina with happiness for a moment, trundled forward and projected a map of the galaxy, with a section missing. A smaller orange and white droid, of a design Jaina had never seen before, excitedly beeped at Poe. The pilot retrieved something from the main command station and inserted it into the little droid, who then rolled over and displayed a smaller map, finishing Artoo’s projection.

“Luke,” Leia breathed.

Jaina stepped further into the room. “That's in the Unknown Regions,” she said. “Not Chiss territory, but still.”

“Chiss?” a dark-haired man with a beard asked. “And who are you?”

“They're Jedi,” Leia said. “They've been away a long time. Luke apparently sent them on a mission just before the massacre.”

“Twelve years is a long time for a mission,” he said skeptically.

“Not if you're really deep undercover.” Jaina gestured to the map. “The Chiss are an insular race, located more over here by Dantooine, Sernpidal, and this area, but deep in the Unknown Regions. Blue skin, black hair, red eyes.”

“I still want to know who you are,” the man insisted.

“Jaina Solo,” she said. “Yes, relative of Han Solo. Somewhat distant, before you ask. My partner, Kyp Durron. Who are you?”

“Captain Temmin Wexley. But everyone calls me Snap.”

Jaina eyed him for a moment, then dismissed him, going back to studying the map.

“Have you been to this part of the Unknown Regions?” Leia asked Jaina.

“No, I never made it that deep.”

The general glanced at Kyp, who shook his head. Kyp had never been to Chiss space in the first place.

“I think we’ll send Rey, Chewie, and Artoo to find Luke,” Leia said. “But not today. Everyone needs rest first.”

“Why not send the Jedi?” a Mon Calamarian asked from the other side of the command console, and Jaina started at the voice. She hadn't heard it in years. Admiral Ackbar! She looked at Kyp, and he gave her a slight smile.

Rey and Chewie aren't needed here,” Leia said. “We may still need the Jedi.”

 

\----------

Leia, with hope in her eyes despite her continued grief, gave the Jedi an in-depth debriefing on who Snoke was, so far as they knew, what the First Order was and who its known commanders were, and what the Starkiller Base had been and how they'd destroyed it.

She didn't discuss the massacre of the Jedi by Kylo Ren, or say anything about her husband’s death.

That evening, however, there was a small gathering to mark Han’s passing. It wasn't the funeral Han Solo deserved, but it was all they could manage at the time. Preparations had already begun to move the base elsewhere, as the First Order had discovered their location. It would take at least a day, however, to dismantle and load everything.

Kyp and Jaina weren't invited to the gathering, which made sense to Kyp but obviously stung Jaina quite a bit.

“He wasn't even my dad here, I don't know these people. But Rey didn't know him, either!”

He slung an arm around her shoulders. “I'm sorry.”

“It's stupid to be upset about. _My_ dad is fine. He's just not here.”

“Come with me.”

Curiously, Jaina followed Kyp up to the roof, where he produced a bottle of Corellian brandy and two glasses pilfered from the mess.

“Where'd you get this?” she asked, rolling the bottle between her hands.

“My flight bag.”

“You carry expensive liquor in your flight bag?”

“Not usually. This was intended for something.” Kyp took the bottle and poured them each a bit. Capping the brandy, he set it down between them. Lifting his glass, he said, “To Han Solo, the galaxy's most honorable scoundrel and the best older brother figure I could have when I needed one most.”

Jaina smirked. “To the best dad I could have asked for. Even if he was very human and sometimes let Mom down, he was almost always there when I needed him.”

They clinked glasses, then sipped at the golden-brown liquid.

“Much better than that horrible homebrew we had on Borleias,” he remarked after a moment.

Jaina snickered. “That stuff was awful.”

“I _did_ enjoy the look on Fel’s face at that first taste.”

“Yeah, that was funny.” Jaina sighed. “I know we told Leia we’d help, but I want to figure out how to get home.”

“We’ll need to go back to where we encountered the rift,” he said. “But there's a really big fireball where we came through, so that could be an issue.”

Jaina finished her brandy. “We’ll figure that out when we get there, I guess. I want to see Rey off before we do anything. I also want to get the sensor scans from Rowdy run through the simulation computer here. Probably pass it off as a potential weapon the First Order was testing. Should do that tomorrow.”

“I'll add mine in, as well.” Kyp stood, offered her a hand up. “I'm going to bed. Interdimensional time travel takes it out of me.”

She snorted. “Yeah.”

 

\----------

 

Jaina retired to her shared quarters, where Rey had already staked out one of the two beds, each against an opposite wall, with a rather narrow space between them. Calling the room "cramped" was generous. The Jedi didn't mind, especially since she knew the teenager was her cousin. The girl was a little older than her cousin Ben had been. She'd never had a female family member before. Too bad they couldn't discuss it.

As she readied for bed, in the pants of her robes and an old shirt she kept in her flight bag, Jaina braided her hair.

“So how old are you, Rey?” she asked.

The young woman had to think. “I'm seventeen? My family left me on Jakku when I was five, or about. That was twelve years ago.”

“You make me feel old,” Jaina muttered. “I'm thirty-four.”

“And you've defeated a Sith Lord?”

Jaina nodded. “Darth Caedus.”

She picked up her lightsaber, remembering the moment she'd driven it through Jacen’s chest. The memory didn't have quite the sheen of horror that it once had.

“I saw Kylo Ren kill Han Solo,” Rey said after a moment. “Han let him do it. His own son. Why?”

Jaina's head whipped up. “Kylo Ren is Han and Leia's son?”

Rey nodded. “Ben, I think? I didn't hear most of their conversation, they were too far away.”

The older woman blinked. Then she stood. “I'll be right back.”

 

\----------

 

“So, Durron. Got a question.”

Poe had been affable about sharing his quarters with Kyp. His usual roommate had died at Starkiller Base, so the space was free. He sat on his bed while Kyp arranged his things, such as they were.

“What's that?” Kyp asked.

“You and Jaina aren't a thing, are you?”

Kyp paused in his own nighttime preparations and arched a brow at the younger man. “No. Jaina's presently single, if that's what you're asking.”

Poe kicked back on his cot. “You think she'd be interested in me?”

Feeling his eyelid twitch, Kyp ducked his head. “She does tend to go for pilots.”

There was a knock at the door. Sensing Jaina outside, Kyp rose.

He felt her agitation immediately, and she didn't speak, just turned and went outside. Kyp followed, wondering what had got her in such a state.

Jaina was silent til they reached the edge of the base. Then she whirled and said, “Kylo Ren is Ben Solo, the son of Han and Leia.”

“Seriously?” Kyp tried for words, failed horribly.

“I know. Rey just told me. Why didn't Mom- _Leia_ mention that little detail?”

“You didn't tell her the truth about Caedus, either.”

Jaina shook her head. “I couldn't do that to her. And it's even worse now.”

“No kidding. What now?”

“I have no idea. Did you know Rey is seventeen? Seventeen. And she's about to go off and find Luke, who is hiding Force knows where and has been doing Force knows _what_ for twelve kriffing _years_ , with his daughter in virtual slavery on some desert backwater, while a Sith Lord and his stupid apprentice run amok.”

Kyp couldn't help but smirk. “Now do you see why I was so frustrated with Luke during the Vong war?”

“... Yes, actually. Leia says Luke went to find the first Jedi Temple. What the kriff is _that_ going to do to help?”

He shrugged. He wanted to ease her frustration and worry, but didn't know how. “No idea.”

Kyp glanced over, noting the shirt she wore for the first time. It was black, with silver threads shot through. Something he would have worn in his flashier younger days. “Hey, that looks familiar.”

“It should. I stole it from you on Hapes.”

He lifted a brow. “So that's where it went. I never could figure out what I did with it.”

“Mine now.”

“What if I want it back?”

“Well, seeing as I'm wearing it, you'd have to take it back. But then, I wouldn't have a shirt.”

They both paused as other meanings to her words occurred to them. She blushed and crossed her arms over her chest, the flush of her cheeks barely visible in the dying light.

“So why'd you steal mine, and not one of Fel’s?”

“You have better fashion sense. And you loaned it to me in the first place, remember?”

“Along with my spare robes. I got those back, though. Pity. I could have fought you for them.”

She shook her head. “In your dreams.”

He smirked, eyes going to her chest. The flush climbed higher in her cheeks. “I swear, Durron, you are the one person in the galaxy that can still make me blush like I'm thirteen.”

Kyp's mouth stretched wide in a teeth-flashing grin.

“And I'm going to regret saying that, because you're going to use that power for evil, aren't you?”

“You know me _so_ well.”

“Of all the people to get stuck here with, it just _had_ to be you, didn't it?”

“It could have been worse, Jay. Imagine getting stuck somewhere with Valin Horn.”

She snorted. “If we could be serious for a minute? We need to get back out there and see if we can figure out how we got here and how to get home. But I realize that could take a while. We have to take readings where the rift was, see if we can figure out what triggered it. I doubt it's going to just open back up on demand.”

“I think the dying sun triggered it,” Kyp said. “At least, that's my theory. Though that's just what my gut is telling me. I'm not a scientist, and I'll be the first to admit that I'm completely lost here.”

“Okay, so a dying star opens portals between realities? That sounds insane.”

“Yet here we are.” Kyp looked up at the sky, filled with billions of stars. The patterns were unfamiliar, but that was nothing new. “I'm sorry about … Leia. Han. I can't imagine what you're feeling right now.”

She shrugged. “I don't even know what I'm feeling. None of this seems real. I'm told that Dad- _Han_ is dead, but I didn't see it, didn't feel it. He's just absent. Mom is the harder part. To have her look at me and not know me is just…”

Jaina trailed off, glanced at him in the moonlight. “Actually, I'm glad it's you here. You know better than anyone else I know, besides Mom and Uncle Luke, what it's like to suddenly lose your whole family.”

“Unfortunately, that's very true.”

He also knew better than anyone what it was to kill your brother, but he didn't say that aloud. They'd already discussed it one night, not long after Jacen’s death. Then they'd never spoken of it again.

“So, wait. You've been using _my_ shirt to sleep in for _fifteen years_?”

Jaina sighed. “Let it go, Kyp.”

“Not in this lifetime. Did Jag know?”

“... He had no reason to.”

“Ha!”

“I'm going to punch you in your perfect teeth if you don't shut up.”

Kyp laughed. “Go back to bed, Jaina.”

“I don't think we should mention Jacen to Leia.”

Sobering, he shook his head. “I wasn't going to.”

 

\----------

 

They returned to the barracks, parting ways in the hall. Jaina let herself into her temporary quarters, found Rey marvelling at a stack of crackers from a packet she'd opened.

“You look like you've never seen those before.”

Rey shook her head. “I haven't. I've been living off portioned rations for twelve years. Those ones you put in water?”

Jaina looked her up and down. “No wonder you look a little malnourished. Those aren't meant to be a steady diet.”

The young woman shook her head. “It was all we had. We traded scavenged parts for food.”

“Where was this?”

“Jakku. Niima Outpost.”

“I've never heard of it, but with so many planets in this galaxy, that isn't a surprise.” Jaina's gaze fell on her flight bag and she smiled suddenly. “I'll bet I've got something you haven't had before.”

“That's a sucker bet,” Rey complained. “I haven't had _most_ things.”

The Jedi pulled a foil-wrapped object out of a pocket on her bag, unwrapped it a bit, and broke a piece of the dark brown substance off, handing it over. Rey took it, eyeing it suspiciously as Jaina put the rest away.

“What is this?”

“Eat it before it melts.”

Rey popped the square into her mouth, and her hazel eyes went wide with surprise. “Ith ‘ith ‘ _ocolate_?!” she asked around the mouthful.

Grinning, Jaina nodded.

The younger woman finished chewing and swallowed. “I think… I'm sure I had some when I was little, but I haven't had any since my family left me on Jakku. I don't remember. … May I have some more?”

“Sure.” Jaina quickly turned to her bag to hide her expression. Rey's life in desperate poverty was definitely something she was going to talk to Luke about when she saw him. No one deserved that when they had family elsewhere to take care of them, secrecy be damned.

She gave Rey a second piece of chocolate, amused at the delight she took in it. “Tell me how you got here.”

As Rey talked, telling Jaina her story, the Jedi moved her flight bag to the floor and stretched out on her cot. Instead of Rey's tale, or the startling news of Leia's son being Kylo Ren, she found herself thinking of Kyp. He obviously felt more comfortable here, openly flirting with her in a way he hadn't in years. Her confirming that she and Jag were once again in the “off” phase of their long on/off relationship made him more playful, apparently. She had to admit, she liked that side of him, and she had missed the bantering, the casual flirting and innuendo, the camaraderie she'd shared with the Jedi Master.

He'd had a girlfriend, though, hadn't he? Or several. There'd been a string of them for a while there, and while she knew she had no right to the feeling, hearing of each one had made her just a little jealous. Kyp wasn't hers. They'd established years ago that wasn't what they were to each other. Hadn't they?

She rolled over and pressed her face into her pillow, as Rey described getting free of her restraints by mind-tricking a stormtrooper. It was irrelevant that Kyp _still_ made her blush like an idiot, still made her stomach do little flips. They would get back to their reality and she would put all this weirdness behind her. No First Order, no Sith sort-of brothers, no scrappy-but-innocent cousins, no flirting with Kyp Durron!

She would go back to … A life where she'd killed her twin brother, where the man she loved--sometimes hated, but always loved to varying degrees--was technically the enemy. A world where Kyp would withdraw and wouldn't look at her the way he had tonight.

Jaina sighed. Rey stopped speaking.

“What?” the young woman inquired.

“Keep going. So you pulled the lightsaber to you telekinetically, and…?”

 


	3. Chapter 3

**\--Chapter Three--**

Jaina woke to an unfamiliar room, which had once been a fairly normal occurrence but was now disconcerting. Rey was not awake yet, and Jaina took a long moment to compose herself, after the strange new reality once more made itself known. She was still here; waking had not brought her out of a frightening dream.

It wasn't yet dawn, but some personnel were either up early or still up from the night before. She went to find breakfast, unsurprised to find Kyp already there, looking like he'd slept as well as she had.

He lifted a piece of bread at her by way of greeting. Jaina plunked her tray down across from his.

“Sleep well?” she asked.

Green eyes regarded her with little amusement. “Not particularly. Dameron snores.”

“So do you,” she reminded him.

“Not this bad.” He took a bite of what was possibly reconstituted eggs. “How'd you fare?”

“I get the feeling Rey has been alone too long and is desperate for friends, family, someone to care. She talked my ear off until past midnight.”

“I'd question the wisdom of sending her off to find Luke by herself, but Chewie is more than capable of watching out for her.” Kyp set down his fork and picked up his glass of blue milk. “I can't imagine how hard he's taking Han’s death. Those two were inseparable. Han’s reaction after Chewie-”

“Yeah. I'm really not surprised Han did a runner on this, though I wish I could say my dad was made of sterner stuff. At least, after Anakin died, they stayed together.”

Kyp shrugged. “I wouldn't run. But then, I tried that kind of thing once and it didn't go so well.”

She propped her elbows on the table, not really interested in her food. “After… Kun, right?”

He nodded tightly, speaking in a low voice so they wouldn't be overheard. “I'm still amazed that they let me off that easy. But a lot of people thought it was just. We were technically at war with them and they _did_ try to assassinate the Chief of State.”

Jaina reached a hand over, lightly touched his arm. “You're thinking about Caedus.”

“What made his punishment extermination when mine wasn't?”

“You were sixteen and possessed by a Sith Lord. Your targets were entirely military. You didn't start a war. Caedus was… He did it all on his own. He arranged to have the heads of state of two governments killed. He murdered a Jedi Master.”

He turned his hand over so hers rested in his palm. “I felt guilty. I _feel_ guilty. I picked fights with criminals in the hopes they'd kill me.”

“And there's the biggest reason. Caedus didn't feel guilty except at the very end, and then only because I beat him.”

More people began to trickle into the mess. Jaina withdrew her hand from Kyp's and went back to eating. She didn't like talking about Jacen. She still missed her brother painfully. It was something she was never going to completely get over, she knew.

Kyp eyed her with sympathy, but didn't speak.

\----------

Rey, when she made her appearance, had dressed in new clothes--new to her, really--and spent breakfast asking the Jedi questions about the Force. Then she asked if it was possible to heal people with it.

“Sometimes,” Jaina said. “Mostly, yes. Why do you ask?”

The young woman rose from the table and motioned for them to follow her, which they did.

There was a fairly rudimentary medical suite, with a few beds and one lone bacta tank. Only one of the beds was occupied, by a dark-skinned man in a medically-induced coma. Kyp recognized him as the man Chewie had carried off the _Falcon_ the day before. Had it really only been a day?

“This is Finn,” Rey said. “He's my friend. He fought Kylo Ren for me, and nearly died.”

“What are his injuries?” Jaina asked.

“Lightsaber wound to the shoulder, and across his back,” the medic said as she came over. “It nearly severed his spine. He really shouldn't have been moved.”

“We couldn't leave him there!” Rey protested.

Kyp put his hands on the girl's shoulders. “No, you couldn't. He would have died when the planet collapsed into a star.”

Jaina frowned at the medic, who gazed back unapologetically. “I'm assuming he was in the bacta?”

“Yes.”

"For less than twenty-four hours?"

"It's a higher-concentration blend," the medic said. "It heals faster in less time."

“Uh-huh. So why's he still unconscious?”

“We're giving his body some more time to heal and rest,” the human woman explained. “The bacta can only do so much in this case. Have you ever seen a lightsaber wound?”

Jaina grabbed the hem of her own shirt--the very same she'd bantered with Kyp about the night before--and lifted it, exposing a long, thin burn scar that bisected her abdomen almost horizontally, just above the waistband of her black pants. It was pink and a little waxy in texture, about the width of her finger. “Yes, you could say I have.”

“Where did you get that?” Rey asked, voice shocked.

“Courtesy of a Sith Lord. Before I killed him.”

Kyp wasn't looking at the scar. His eyes never left her face. The lightsaber wound hadn't been her only injury from that battle. Caedus had also crushed her hand, breaking nearly every bone in it. Kyp had been there, been among the Jedi who'd come to extract her after her battle with Caedus. He'd seen her cradling Jacen’s body, hunched over, injured and sobbing. He’d had to stand by and just watch as Jag Fel had comforted her, carried her away to get medical treatment. He'd hated feeling helpless then, and he hated the reminder now.

Jaina shook her head. “We can't do anything for Finn at this point. He's received better aid than we could give him, anyway. He just needs to rest until they wake him up.”

“I won't see that,” Rey sighed. “I'm leaving.”

“Why don't you spend some time with him?” Kyp suggested. “He should be able to hear you, even if he isn't conscious.”

Rey nodded. The Jedi excused themselves and left the girl to keep her friend company.

"That kid went up against a Sith for a girl?” Kyp let out a low whistle. “He's not much older than her, and he's not Force sensitive. How'd he not get killed instantly?”

“He's a former stormtrooper,” Jaina said. “He didn't want to kill people, and he helped rescue Poe when he got captured by Ren. So he defected. Rey is very fond of him.”

“Former Imp, huh? That seems to run in your family.”

She shot him a look. “Technically, I'm an aberration. Dad defected from the Empire and stole Chewie. Rey has a thing for Finn, the defector. Jag never defected.”

Kyp shrugged. “Close enough, for a while there.”

They fetched their astromechs and took the droids to the command center., where they loaded both sets of scan data into the computer.

“It will take time to program a simulation from these readings,” C-3PO informed them.

“That's fine, Threepio,” Jaina murmured.

The golden protocol droid tipped his head. “I am not accustomed to being addressed as such by anyone outside the princess’s family. The general, I mean.”

Jaina closed her eyes for a moment. “You were there yesterday. I'm related to Han Solo.”

“But you look like the general.”

“I never said _how_ I was related.”

Suddenly irritated, Jaina stomped off.

Threepio turned to Kyp, who shrugged.

“Mind if we leave the droids here?” he asked.

“Certainly,” Threepio responded. “I do enjoy getting to know new astromechs.”

Rowdy blatted something, and Threepio whirled to look at it. “I certainly do _not_ know you!”

Kyp decided to escape before Threepio decided to ask any pointed questions.

\----------

Rey and Chewbacca left on the _Millennium Falcon_ that afternoon, to much applause from the base personnel.

Jaina wished _she_ was going to find Luke, but she understood why Leia was only sending Rey, Chewie, and Artoo. Rey was Luke's daughter, and it was part of her rite of passage, so to speak. And Jaina didn't want to go anywhere near the Unknown Regions ever again. She wanted to go back to that area near Bakura and try to find that rift. Try to go home.

Her fighter didn't need any tune-ups, really, but it was habit for her when she needed to think to work on something. The _Falcon_ wasn't here, so that left either her X-Wing or Kyp's, and he was already doing something with his.

Dressed in her usual non-Jedi attire--the shirt she'd debated Kyp about, black cargo pants, and her old flight jacket--Jaina grabbed a ladder and went to work on her StealthX. She concentrated on scrubbing some carbon scoring off the fiberplast hull. It was more for her piece of mind than anything, since it wasn't messing up a sleek paint job. Once that was done, she opened the hyperdrive compartment and checked the wiring.

“Looks like you really know your way around the guts of a ship.”

One hand on the edge of the hyperdrive compartment to hold her balance, Jaina turned on the ladder to see Poe Dameron standing at the foot, looking up at her. “Been doing it all my life.”

“This sure is a nice ship,” he commented. “Looks like an Incom, but nothing I've ever seen before.”

Jaina glanced at the sleek, matte-black X-Wing with pride and patted the hull. “Yup. Incom StealthX. Based off a T-65XJ5. You're flying what?”

“Mine is a T-85,” he admitted. “Everyone else has T-70s. But mine came straight from the New Republic fleet. Everyone else got theirs secondhand. I defected and stole it.”

Jaina had to laugh. “So what's your rank?” she asked, brown eyes scanning his olive green uniform. The color reminded her of Kyp's eyes, and she glanced over to her fellow Jedi, even as she tried to squash the thought.

“Commander.”

She smirked and flipped the front of her jacket forward, showing him her rank insignia. “Colonel.”

“So you outrank me, huh?” Poe grinned. “How'd you get that one? You don't look old enough.”

She snorted. “I'm thirty-four. I've been a colonel since I was twenty-two. Well, I was until I retired at twenty-four.”

Poe blinked. “Seriously?”

“Major at twenty, lieutenant colonel at twenty-one, colonel at twenty-two. Not exactly battlefield promotions, but close.” She hopped down from the ladder, aware that she was annoyingly short next to the Resistance pilot. “It was a long and brutal war. A third to half the galaxy fell, and our fleet was decimated. Command was generous with those that survived. One of my promotions was compensation for them transferring my best pilots out of my squadron.”

“... At twenty?”

“Nineteen, actually.”

“Wow. I'm impressed. Not that you need to hear that, I'm sure.” Poe leaned against the ladder. “You gonna stick around a while? I know you probably want to find a way home, but we could use someone with real battle experience. Half our remaining pilots are practically still wet behind the ears.”

Jaina smiled a little. “Everyone has to start somewhere.”

“That is very true. And you're making it difficult to flatter you.”

\----------

Across the way, Kyp turned his attention to the repairs he was making and growled under his breath. By her X-Wing, Jaina laughed at something Dameron said, and Kyp gritted his teeth.

“You love her.”

Leia’s voice startled him, and he nearly drove the hydrospanner into his thumb. Biting back the instinctive curse, he put it down and turned to the general. She regarded him with a little amusement, and a surprising amount of compassion.

There was no point denying it. Everyone back home had known, even though he'd denied it in recent years. Hells, even Jaina knew. “Yeah,” he sighed.

“And?” Leia looked at him expectantly.

Kyp shook his head. “You have no idea how strange this conversation is for me. Where Jay and I are from, you _hate_ me.”

“Why is that?” she inquired.

Where to start? No way was he telling her about Carida. No one here needed to know about that, and since Jaina didn't hold it against him, he could pretend it hadn't happened.

“The age difference, for one.” Kyp huffed out a breath. “It's weird that you're only, what, four years older than me here? Anyway, I'm fourteen years older than her. And as you told me frequently in years past, I'm cocky, obnoxious, brash, reckless, irreverent…”

She laughed. “Sounds like Han. Who was eleven years older than me, by the way.”

“Yeah, I know.” Kyp shrugged. “Plus, Jaina's been involved with this guy named Jag, off and on, for nearly sixteen years. He's a good guy, most of the time, but…”

Leia's brown eyes crinkled at the corners and she smiled faintly. “And what's _he_ like?”

“Really stiff. He's the leader of the Imperial Remnant, actually. Keeps trying to get Jaina to give up the Jedi. But he does seem to love her.”

“Hmm.” Leia looked over to where Jaina and Poe stood. “I'm not her mother. I don't know what that Leia would say here. But I just lost my husband, after ten years apart. So I'll say this: Don't let doubts stop you. You don't know how much time you have or when it all ends. And that woman over there may be flirting with Poe, but she keeps looking over here.”

Kyp straightened, surprised. “What?”

Leia’s smile turned to a full grin, probably the first she'd had in days. “As for that boyfriend? He's not here.”

Then she turned and walked away. Kyp stated after her for a moment, before looking at Jaina.

It had always been so much more complicated than Leia made it seem. And yet… Was it really? This might as well be a fresh start for them, because from the looks of things, they were stuck here for good.

Jaina pretended to sock Poe in the shoulder, said something Kyp couldn't make out. In return, Poe angled a little closer. Even from here, his interest in Jaina was obvious.

Kyp had told Poe that Jaina wasn't attached. He had no one to blame but himself.

Grabbing the hydrospanner, he tossed it back into the tool box. Then he took a deep breath. Now or never, Durron, he thought.

Making a sudden decision, he started towards Jaina.

\----------

Poe held in a snicker. Durron’s irritation could have been seen from space, and the more he and Jaina flirted, the blacker the looks the Jedi Master shot them.

He was interested in the petite Jedi, true, but the obvious jealousy of Durron, and the unconscious looks Jaina kept sending him, made it clear that Poe didn't really have a nexu in this fight. There was obviously history between these two, and that wasn't something Poe wanted to step into the middle of. Not against a Jedi who could probably beat him to a pulp literally without lifting a finger.

When Durron headed over, he murmured, “Incoming.”

\----------

At Poe's warning, Jaina looked up to see Kyp striding towards them, expression somewhere between thunderous and determined. She'd known flirting with the Resistance pilot would probably make Kyp a little jealous, but he looked ready to pull the ears off a gundark. Her heart leapt into her throat. She'd only seen that precise look on his face once before, in a corridor on Hapes, when he'd looked at her in an extremely tight red dress and drawled that she couldn't possibly fight him wearing it, there wasn't enough room for the Force to squeeze into it.

Completely ignoring Poe, Kyp closed the space between them and, without a word, he caught her face in his hands, crushed their bodies together, and kissed her as if his very life depended on it.

She saw it coming, could have resisted. Didn't.

It was the most searing kiss Jaina had ever felt in her life, heat shooting straight to her toes. As Kyp's mouth moved over hers, demanding and possessive in a way she'd never expected, she found herself melting into him, unable to keep from kissing him back.

If she'd known kissing him would be like this, she'd have done it when she was nineteen.

After an eternity, he lifted his head. Jaina stared up at him, heart pounding, her brain a confused jumble. Vaguely, she heard Poe clear his throat and say, “And that's my cue to be elsewhere.”

“Slap me if you want,” Kyp told her, voice low and husky in a way that made her stomach--and other bits--do flips, “but I'm tired of trying to convince myself I'm not completely in love with you, Jaina Solo. I've been resisting kissing you for sixteen years, and I refuse to regret doing it now.”

Jaina realized her fingers gripped the front of his shirt, and she pried them loose. She was still processing that Kyp had kissed her. Not only had he kissed her, but he had made the earth beneath her feet move. Kissing Jag had never rocked her like _that_.

“Uh,” she said stupidly.

Kyp smirked then. “Did I fry your circuits, Goddess?”

She licked swollen lips. “You, ah… Stang, Kyp, now I can't think straight.”

“But you haven't hit me, so…”

Jaina realized that they had a very entertained audience, everyone finding the unfolding drama much more interesting than their duties. “Let's go talk.”

She caught his hand and pulled him towards the main building. Once inside, they took a left towards the barracks and she pulled him into her quarters. Then she locked the door.

“Murdering me in private?” he asked, joking to diffuse the sudden tension.

Jaina chewed on her lip and bounced a little on the balls of her feet, her mind spinning. He'd kissed her. After fifteen years of jokes and flirting and hints that he cared for her, he'd come out and said he loved her. Was _in love_ with her.

She looked at him in silence, seeing him with new eyes. He'd always been there for her, when she'd needed him most, and never asked for anything in return. He'd stood by her through the whole mess with Jag, had never pushed.

Until today. Today, he'd sent her world spinning on its axis. And there he stood, looking handsome and surprisingly uncertain. Vulnerable in a way he'd never shown her before.

And it didn't hurt that he was handsome, had given her butterflies in her stomach since she was sixteen.

“Jaina?”

“I don't know why we’re here,” she said. “Why we're in this reality or what's going to happen. But I hate what I see when I look at Mom- When I look at Leia and see all those wasted years without Han. Kyp…”

She shook her head. “I wasted years on Jag. Why did you wait?”

“I didn't, exactly. I tried to move on. But I couldn't. And seeing you with Dameron… I couldn't help myself. I'm not apologizing.”

Jaina snorted. “I wouldn't expect it. And I don't want Poe.”

She took two steps--it was a small room--and pushed Kyp against the wall. He hit the stone with surprise, but it was nothing to what slammed into him when Jaina stood on her toes and kissed him.

Kyp's hands pulled her tight against him. Jaina slid her hands into his black curls, tilting her head to slant her mouth under his.

Kissing him made her head spin, was something she didn't want to stop. Jaina had never felt like this before. She broke the kiss, gasping for air.

“Kyp,” she said breathlessly.

He nipped at her bottom lip, slid his mouth along her jaw. Jaina cupped the back of his head, turning her face to capture his mouth again.

She let out a yelp when he boosted her into his arms and turned to place her on the bed. Jaina fell back, pulling him with her, and for several long minutes, let herself forget everything else.

It was amazingly easy to lose herself in Kyp's arms. Part of her had always known it would be, and had once been frightened by the idea. Now, she _wanted_ the escape and the solace.

He shifted a little so that he wasn't squishing her, and rose on an elbow, gazing down at her with open adoration. Jaina ran her thumb over his lips, then smoothed her hand down his chest. She must have hugged him hundreds of times over the years, but this, lying here with him on the one-person cot, was light years more intimate.

“What are you thinking, Goddess?” he asked.

The revival of the old nickname made her smile. The vulnerability in his eyes told her she had to be completely honest with him, and with herself. Anything less would be doing both of them a disservice. After kissing him back, enthusiastically so, if she walked away now, it would hurt him. It would break him if she continued where this was headed and changed her mind after. And she didn't want to hurt him.

If she were completely honest with herself, she had known the moment he kissed her there was no going back. She wanted to keep going. She wanted him to keep looking at her like that, like she was the most important thing in his world. She wanted ...

“I don't want Poe,” she repeated. “I want _you_.”

Kyp’s hand curved around her hip. “Want, as in…?”

“At the moment, as in _want_.” She levered up, nipped at his bottom lip. “I'm willing to discuss beyond that in the morning.”

He groaned and kissed her hungrily. “Have you ever been with another Force user?” he asked against her mouth.

Time for more honesty. “No, just Jag," she admitted. "Is it different?”

Kyp shuddered and pulled her closer. “Really? Just him?”

“Don't want to talk about him. Is it different with two Jedi?”

“Very. Better.” He used a little nudge of power to ghost a caress over her skin.

There was only one thing she could say then. She might regret it later, or not. She sucked in a breath. “Show me."

\----------

The feel of his body against hers was intoxicating. Jaina sighed into his mouth as she ran her hands over his back, the hard muscles rippling as he shifted above her. He kissed her mouth, her jaw, her neck. Jaina tipped her head back, eyes closed as she revelled in the feel of his mouth on her skin.

Kyp rolled to his side, freeing his hands.

“I want to make love to you,” he murmured. His hands pulled her hips tight against his. “But I also want to hold you down and fuck you until you scream for me.”

Jaina shivered at the mental image. “Right now? Fuck me.”

When she'd been a teenager, Jaina had actually spent quite a lot of time thinking about sex with Kyp Durron. But it had never been thoughts of tender lovemaking. He'd always made her think of hard, dirty fucking. Still a virgin at the time, it had thrilled and terrified her that she was fantasizing about the Jedi Master having his way with her. But she had, and even after Sernpidal, imagining hot, raw sex with him had been the fastest way for her to get off.

Even after Jag, she sometimes let her thoughts stray to Kyp bending her over something and fucking her until she couldn't walk. She'd never quite known why the fantasies had always been so vividly, insistently carnal, until now.

From the heat in his eyes, and the hard press of his erection against her thigh, she knew this was going to probably ruin her for all others. Kyp was going to leave his mark on her body and soul.

She didn't want it any other way.

\----------

Kyp rocked his hips against hers, loving the way Jaina's pupil expanded and her breath caught, the way her nipples visibly peaked under the shirt she'd stolen from him. Knowing that she was probably bare beneath _his_ shirt just turned him on even more.

He slid his hand under her shirt, palming one breast before he tugged at her nipple. She gasped and bit her lip.

He'd always hoped she'd respond this way if he ever got her into bed. Jaina was a passionate woman; he didn't think she'd be quiet and demure. The way she slid her hand down to stroke his erection through his pants told him she wasn't the hesitant type at all.

Kyp decided to return the favor. He pressed his hand against her through her pants, rubbing her mound. Jaina immediately began undulating her hips, pushing up against him. Deciding that wasn't enough, he unfastened her fly and slipped his hand in, cupping her. She quaked with need, making a small mewl of pleading when he parted her with two fingers and thrust them into her.

“We do this my way,” he told her in a low rasp that made her shudder. He slowly pistoned his fingers, and she started panting, kiss swollen lips parted.

“What's your way?” she asked breathlessly.

“Mmm. I'm still deciding. I've wanted to fuck you so many ways, where do I want to start?”

“I think on my back is a good one,” she suggested.

His green eyes darkened. “Yeah, I think so, too.”

Removing his hand from her pants, Kyp pushed her shirt up, exposing the pert breasts he'd wanted to taste for so long. They were perfect, round and just big enough to fill his hands, nipples pink and pebbled. He cupped them, drawing the nipple of her left breast into his mouth. She sucked in a breath, hips jerking at the surge of need, one strong enough he felt it go through her.

Knowing he affected her that much was heady.

He licked and sucked at her breasts, using the hand not holding himself up to caress her, stroking his fingers over her arm, her sides, her hip under her pants. Jaina's breathing deepened when he slid his mouth down her stomach, circling her navel with his tongue.

He sat up, grabbing her legs to remove her boots. Then he yanked her pants down her hips and off, throwing them on the other bed. Jaina sat up to remove her shirt, and Kyp pulled her into his arms for a hard, hungry kiss.

“This. Off,” she said against his mouth, pulling at his shirt.

He broke the kiss just long enough to pull the offending garment off. He wasn't sure where it landed, didn't care. Jaina eagerly ran her hands over his chest, fingers rubbing the sparse hair before she touched his nipples.

“This feel good for you?” she asked in a whisper.

“Mm. Yeah.”

She dragged her tongue over one flat nipple, eyes turned up to watch his face. Kyp tangled his fingers in her long, dark hair. She licked and sucked at first one, then the other. When she made to unfasten his pants, he stopped her.

“Not yet,” he rasped. “In a minute.”

Kyp pushed her back down on the bed and spread her legs. He kissed her inner thighs, rubbing her legs as he traced patterns on her skin with his tongue. The closer he got to her damp curls, the needier the sounds she made.

He was going to make her scream before he was done.

Kyp parted her with his fingers and took a long moment to enjoy the fact that she was already dripping wet, labia swollen and her clit erect, visibly throbbing with her arousal. He flicked his tongue out for his first taste of her.

“Oh,” she breathed. Her hand cupped the back of his head as he pressed closer, dragging his tongue up to her clit.

Kyp grinning when her fingers curled into his hair and she moaned. He closed his lips around the little nub, sucking greedily. The sound she made then was indescribable. Her legs shook, her breathing suddenly ragged. Jaina wrapped her legs around his shoulders, her heels pressing into his back.

He speared two digits into her wet heat, picking up where he'd left off before, curling his fingers up to find the spot inside, the rough little patch that he hoped would be her undoing. When he located it, pressing the pads of his fingers into it, Jaina jerked, legs spasming, and he knew he was on the right course.

Kyp licked and sucked at her clit, fingers working hard and fast inside her. Jaina moaned, pulling at his hair as she panted.

“Kyp,” she groaned. “Kypkypkyp, I'm gonna-”

She tensed, legs trembling, as she came. The sound she made wasn't quite the scream he'd wanted, but since it seemed she could barely breathe, and she clenched his fingers so tightly, he wondered how he was going to get his cock into her, that was okay.

He sucked her juices off his fingers, leaving her lying limp on the bed as he stood. She watched him languidly as he kicked off his boots, coming a little more alert when he undid his pants.

\----------

Her eyes widened when his erection popped free. “I had no idea you were packing _that_ ,” she told him.

Pausing with his pants halfway down his thighs, Kyp proudly ran a hand over his cock. It was a good length, and thick, the head hooded by a foreskin, shaft curved back slightly towards his stomach but upright, not leaning to either side. She reached for him eagerly, fingers exploring his length. He was hot, hard, throbbing, the most perfect erection Jaina had ever seen. Well, she'd only seen one in person, that she could recall, but she'd seen plenty of holovids.

Jaina tenderly stroked him, feeling herself tighten with the thought of him inside her. His pulse throbbed beneath her fingers, his shaft twitching with every heartbeat. The head was dark, the whole of him so hard that he moaned when she touched him.

“I need you to fuck me with this,” she told him. “I want you inside me so bad.”

“Lie back and I'll do just that.”

She scooted back on the bed, drawing her knees up, splaying them wide. After kicking off his pants, he knelt between her legs and rubbed the glans against her, teasing her.

“Please,” she gasped, so excited by the thought that she could barely stand it. She needed a good, hard fuck and there was no doubt he was going to give her one.

Slowly, he pushed inside. Kyp didn't want to hurt her, needed to know how much she could take. Jaina lifted her hips to meet him and he abruptly slid in, nearly to the hilt. She grunted a little, a surprised, “Unh!”

“Did I hurt you?”

“Uh-uh. No. This is…” Jaina hissed out a breath and ran her hands down to his backside. “I've never felt this full before,” she whispered.

He withdrew a little, thrust back in. “Force, Jay, you're so tight.”

She tried to relax, to not squeeze him so much, but he was thicker than Jag, and she hadn't had sex in well over a year. “Sorry,” she said.

“No, no, it's good.”

“Yeah?”

“Really good.” Kyp leaned forward, bracing on his hands. “Open for me. I want to show you.”

She lowered her shields and reached for him, surprised at how easy it was to fall into their old bond. When they'd flown together in Twin Suns, when they'd used the Force to sync, it had been like they had one mind at times.

Now, with him inside her, filling her, it was indescribable. Kyp pulled out and she gasped. It was so strange to feel it as he entered her, the glove-like pressure of her vagina gripping him as if _she_ were doing the penetrating.

“Wow, that's…”

“I know.”

He rolled his hips and Jaina arched off the bed with a low cry.

“Don't stop,” she said breathlessly. “Please don't stop.”

Kyp caught her arms and held them pinned above her head. Jaina bit her lip, giving him a look that had him thrusting harder, deeper. She twined her legs around his waist, providing him a better angle.

“Yes,” she groaned. “Kyp. Fuck me.”

Open through their bond as they were, she didn't _need_ words, but saying it aloud clearly got to him. He shuddered but didn't take his eyes off hers.

It was the most intimate experience Jaina had ever had. She was completely at his mercy and she loved every second. Kyp breathed hard, hips pistoning into her, and Jaina had to unwind her legs, bracing her feet on the bed, giving him more room but also letting her rise to meet his thrusts.

She felt another orgasm approaching, the angle of his body against hers stimulating her clit with every movement. Feeling his pleasure just brought her that much closer.

“Come for me,” he growled, and Jaina cried out, falling apart beneath him.

Before it was even over, he'd pulled out and was flipping her over to her stomach. Kyp pulled her hips up, so that Jaina knelt on the bed.

Jaina grunted when he entered her, her hands spasming on the mattress under her. “Oh. Do that again.”

He pulled out slowly, achingly slowly, and she felt horribly empty. Kyp rubbed the head of his cock against her, tormenting her.

“You want this?” he asked.

She groaned. “Don't tease, Kyp.”

Laughing, he pushed back into her tight heat, then repeated the action once, twice more. Her breathing turned heavy, fingers gripping the sheet tightly.

“You like that?” he murmured against her ear. “You like me inside you, Jaina?”

She gave a full-body shudder, squeezing him. Two orgasms down, and she was already climbing again. “Yeah,” she breathed. “Feels so good.”

He nipped at the back of her neck and she clenched down on him, making a pleased sound. Kyp scraped his teeth against her shoulder and Jaina practically purred in pleasure.

“Wouldn't have expected you to be into half of this,” he told her.

“Mm. Sometimes I like not being the one in charge. I kinda like being…”

“You're not submissive,” he said with a laugh. “But you like being dominated.”

“A little,” she breathed. “But just by you, I think. I didn't feel like this-”

Jaina broke off and pushed her hips back against him. She turned her head and gave him a grin. “Fuck me, Master.”

\----------

It was Kyp's turn to shudder. He fastened his mouth to her neck and sucked, his pelvis jerking involuntarily at her words. Jaina let out a breathy little moan that nearly undid him.

“Harder!” she begged. “Please, Kyp, I need to come! Make me come!”

He reached down and touched where he stretched her, sucking hard on the side of her neck. His fingertips slid up to her clit, the small organ engorged and throbbing. She whimpered when he brushed it with a feather-light caress.

“Please, please, make me come!” she keened. “Fuck me, make me come!”

Kyp pounded into her, skin slapping with every thrust. Jaina let out an “Unh!” with each roll of his hips, panting with the effort. He couldn't tell, through their Force-bond, where her pleasure ended and his began.

With her clit under his fingers, Kyp rubbed her fast and hard. Jaina bit her pillow and closed her eyes, trying not to scream as he forced her to climax.

A few more seconds and Kyp felt himself coming, gave over to it and spilled out his orgasm with a cry against her shoulder, hips jerking with every pulse inside her. Feeling his release pushed Jaina into a another orgasm, right on the heels of the first, and Kyp moaned at the echo of it through his own body.

Jaina collapsed facedown on the bed, unable or just unwilling to move, and panted as the spasms from the last orgasm faded. “Oh, holy Force. Is it always like that?”

Next to her, on his side, Kyp shook his head. “No,” he confessed. “It's never been that intense before. Of course, I've never had a woman literally beg me to make her come before.”

She laughed breathlessly. It was almost a groan. “I have never come that hard in my life. Thank you.”

“Glad I could serve, Goddess,” he said, completely without irony.

Jaina closed her eyes. “Mmm. Makes me wonder what it would have been like if I'd taken you up on those ‘interesting propositions’ way back when. Think of all the sex we could have been having if we'd started doing this years ago.”

Kyp moaned and his softening cock twitched. “I've been thinking about it for sixteen years, Jay.”

She levered upright on an elbow. “Not bad for an old man, Durron.”

Green eyes narrowed. “I'm only forty-eight, Solo.”

Jaina rolled to her side and ran her hand down his sweaty chest and abdomen to cup him. “What's your refractory period? How long before you can get it up again?”

He laughed incredulously. “Again?”

She shrugged. “I had three, no, four orgasms. You only had one. I owe you at least two, especially for that thing you did with your tongue.”

Kyp rolled one of her nipples in his fingers, eliciting a gasp. “I don't want details, but I gotta ask. Did Jag never go down on you?”

“Not like _that_. It always felt like he did it only because I'd done the same for him. What you did was…” She trailed off and bit her lip. “Different. Better.”

He shook his head. “Eating you out has always been one of my favorite fantasies. Making you scream while I lick you.”

Her breath caught. “You definitely did that,” she whispered.

Kyp grinned. “Want me to do it again?”

“In a bit. There's something I want to do for you first.”

She shifted on the bed so that her legs curled near his torso and she could lean over his hips. Jaina lifted his flaccid penis and gently stroked it, rolling the foreskin over the head and back. Kyp rested a hand on her knee, fingers toying with the crease on the back as he watched her. He hadn't thought he could be ready again so soon, but he began to harden under her ministrations. Somehow, she knew just how to touch him.

“Like that?” she asked, as she ran her fingers up and down his mostly-erect shaft.

“Unh. Yeah. That's good.”

Jaina smiled and bent her head, running the tip of her tongue over the slit in his glans. He hissed out a breath and his grip on her knee tightened.

She licked his length then, pressing a kiss to the head. “Gonna suck you,” she told him. “To be honest, thought about doing this a lot, even after-” Jaina stopped, obviously reluctant to mention her ex. “I want to make you come.”

Not waiting for a reply, she closed her mouth around him, humming as she sucked him down. He wanted to throw his head back and close his eyes from the pleasure, but he didn't want to miss a second of the glorious sight of her lips around his cock.

He didn't understand how Fel could have failed to savor pleasuring Jaina, how he hadn't reveled in sliding his tongue through her slick, sweet folds to make her cry out, to make her gasp and beg for more. The man was clearly an idiot, and even though Jaina had said it casually, it was obvious to Kyp that it had hurt her that her lover had been more interested in his own gratification than in the shared experience of lovemaking.

Unable to help himself, Kyp slid his hand up her thigh to the patch of curls on her mound, and rubbed his fingers against her. Jaina bent a leg up, giving him access, and he parted her netherlips, slipping his middle finger into her tight heat. His thumb found her clit and massaged it in slow circles. She moaned around his cock and her hips jerked.

With a gasp, she let him go. “I'm supposed to be making _you_ come,” she panted.

“I'm not keeping score,” he told her. “I have sixteen years I could have been fucking you to make up for.”

Her eyes fluttered shut for a moment at his words, then she returned to what she'd been doing, bobbing her head to slide her mouth up and down his erection.

Kyp added a second finger to the first, still slowly thrusting them in and out. “I have an idea,” he said.

Jaina pulled off with a lingering lick up the underside and swirled her tongue around the head. “What's that?”

“Move up here, give my mouth something to do.”

She grinned. Doing as instructed, she waited til he arranged the pillow behind his head, then straddled his face and leaned forward to resume sucking him.

Kyp spread her, exposing the nub of her clit, and spent a few moments stroking it. Jaina moaned around him and he grinned.

He circled her clit with his tongue, prompting another groan from her. He slid his hands over her backside, pulling her hips closer, and drew the little nub into his mouth.

\----------

Jaina paused in her ministrations as Kyp sucked at her clit. His cock throbbed in her hand, drawing her attention back to what she was doing. Her fingers couldn't quite close around him, he was so thick.

She gripped him firmly, sliding her hand down his length with smooth strokes for a few moments, before she wrapped her lips around the head. Sucking him had been one of her favorite fantasies for so long, partly because she wanted to be the one to bring the Jedi Master to his knees and make him beg.

What he was doing with his mouth was really distracting. Jaina let him know through their bond and he laughed aloud, the rumble sending vibrations straight to her core. Gasping, she lifted her head.

“Kyp,” she said, “I can't concentrate when you do that!”

“My apologies, Goddess,” he said, not sounding contrite in the least. “Would you prefer I stop?”

“... Force, no.”

“Thought not.”

He redoubled his efforts and Jaina had to stop what she was doing, because she was so close. How he could make her come so fast, she had no idea.

Once the convulsions from her climax subsided, Jaina moved out of his reach. Kyp chuckled and moved to sit against the wall at the head of the bed.

“This better?” he asked.

“Much.”

Jaina knelt between his legs and took him in her hand, touching him as she watched his face. “I want to make you come,” she told him in a husky voice. “I want to watch.”

“Yeah?” he rasped. “I'm really close.”

Her hand moved faster, harder over the velvety length of him. His breath caught, hips moving in time to her hand. Jaina leaned forward, catching his mouth with hers.

“Come on and come, baby,” she murmured. “Come for me.”

Kyp groaned, trying to keep his eyes open as he spilled over her hand. When he lost the fight, Jaina grinned and kissed his neck.

Finally, those dark green eyes opened and he smiled lazily at her. He pulled her in for a slow, sweet kiss.

“I don't know about you,” she said when they pulled apart, “but I'm exhausted.”

Kyp huffed a laugh. “Yeah, that was a workout,” he agreed.

They stretched out together on the narrow bed, facing each other. Kyp tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, expression content.

“That everything you were hoping for?” she asked.

“Better.” He kissed her forehead. “Go to sleep, Goddess.”

“Yes, _Master_.”

 


	4. Chapter 4

**\--Chapter Four--**

It was dark when Jaina woke, half-sprawled over Kyp on the narrow cot, between him and the wall. He must have turned the light off after she fell asleep. With her cheek pressed to his bare chest, she grinned stupidly to herself.

She could hear the bustle of a base just waking up, a familiar but long-absent background noise. Kyp, still asleep, snored softly, one arm behind his head, the other around her. Jaina closed her eyes and listened to the thump of his heart under her ear.

It didn't surprise her that, after this long, things had happened so quickly. Sixteen years of repressed sexual tension was an enormous amount of explosive material, and if Kyp Durron was good at anything, it was blowing things up.

She snickered to herself and wrapped her arm tighter around him. It had been a long time since she'd felt _happy_ , but she did now. The question was, what now? She knew how Kyp felt, but how did _she_ feel about this?

There had been a crossroads once, a fork in the road where she'd had to choose between two men. Both had a devastating effect on her, and while she didn't precisely regret picking Jag at the time, part of her had always wondered if she'd made the right choice.

With Jag firmly in her past, and Kyp here with her, there was really only one way forward. And after the night she'd just had, there was no way she could walk away from him. Did she love him? Part of her always had, Jaina knew. But everything had been so difficult recently, she hadn't had time to sort out anything.

Kyp shifted in his sleep and his hand moved to her shoulder, fingers petting her skin. Jag had never done that sort of thing, retreating into himself even in slumber. Jaina idly drew a little heart with her fingertip on Kyp's chest and sighed.

If she wasn't completely in love with him yet, she would be soon.

\----------

The growling of Kyp's stomach woke him. He opened his eyes to a dark room, an unfamiliar weight sprawled across his chest. For a moment, he had a flashback to Thelia, the woman he'd dated for several years. But it wasn't her.

"We missed dinner," Jaina said into his shoulder.

His heart swelled and he struggled to keep the emotion from spilling out, but he didn't lock it down fast enough. His bond with Jaina was still open from the night before, until he instinctively tried to close it off, to keep her from sensing his thoughts out of habit.

"Don't do that," she said.

"Do what?"

"Shut me out. You don't have to hide anymore." She pressed a kiss to his chest. "Please don't shut me out."

Kyp sighed and let her in, telling her without words how much waking beside her meant to him. He couldn't find the words, but he didn't need to. Jaina splayed her fingers over his chest and said, "I'm not going away, Kyp."

"I was afraid you'd change your mind this morning," he confessed.

"I made my choice last night."

He caught her hand in his. Her hand was small, almost delicate, but her fingers were rough with calluses from years of working on mechanical things.

"Lights," Jaina said, and the overhead bar light snapped on. Kyp blinked in the sudden illumination.

She sat up, her hair a charming, disheveled mess, and swung her legs over his. "Looks like _you_ get to do the walk of shame today, Durron," she said with a laugh.

He grinned and shook his head in amusement. "I've got a feeling Dameron is gonna let me have it."

"Probably. He seems the type." Jaina dragged her fingers through her hair to tame some of the locks. "I was never interested, you know. I was flirting with him to provoke you."

Kyp paused in stretching. "Why?"

"Well, I didn't expect  _this_ , but because I was confused and feeling contrary, and... I don't know."

"Confused about what?"

She shrugged. " _Our_ flirting. The way you make me feel. I've never really been sure what to do about it, until yesterday. Sixteen years is a long time to date someone, while being attracted to someone else."

Kyp scratched his fingers over his scalp and yawned. "You never let on."

"On  _purpose_ ."

Jaina got out of bed, which wasn't an easy task since she had to climb over him, and picked up his clothes. "I wonder if they have fast laundry units?"

"No idea, but I'll have a look." Kyp stood and took the bundle from her. Tucking it under his arm, he wrapped an arm around her to pull her close. "By the way... Good morning."

Jaina smiled, clearly self-conscious in a way she hadn't been before, and said, "Same to you."

She lightly touched the tattoo on his left bicep, a black circle with what looked like black flames emerging from either side. Kyp looked down as her fingers grazed over it. He knew she'd noticed it over the years, but she'd never asked.

She did now. “What is this?”

“Oh. I got that when I was sixteen. It's… A Sith tattoo.”

Jaina raised a brow. “And you haven't removed it?”

He shrugged. “I wanted the reminder.”

She covered it with her palm. “I don't hold it against you,” she whispered. “And I never will.”

He placed his hand over hers. “I know. I keep it to remind me how far I fell, and how far I've come since. Plus, it helped when I was undercover once trying to hunt down Black Sun operatives years ago. They just assumed that's what it meant.”

“When were you after Black Sun?”

“You were fifteen or sixteen. It was during that mess with Gallandro.”

Jaina made a face. “Oh, her.”

“That was how I got started with my Dozen and chasing smugglers, actually.” Kyp pulled his shirt on, hiding the tattoo and his muscles. He didn't miss the way she sighed in pretend disappointment.

He kissed her softly, then let her go. "Okay, I'll head out first. Meet you for breakfast?"

"Sure."

\----------

Kyp left her to get ready for the day. She sat for a while on the bed, not thinking of anything in particular.

She picked up her commlink, pulled up the frequency for her mother. But there was no way to reach her parents. Did they know yet that she and Kyp had never reached Bakura? They should have been there four days before, should have located Malinza Thanas and relayed a message to Luke.

Sighing, Jaina put the commlink back in her jacket pocket and gathered what she was wearing for the day. The rest went back into her bag. They would likely be leaving the base later, the Resistance moving to their next location, and the Jedi... What? Would they go back to the place they'd come through the rift?

That was what she wanted to do, though from her talks with Kyp, neither of them had much hope in it.

There was a small laundry unit in the barracks refresher room, and Jaina stuffed both clothing and bedding in it before hopping in the shower. She was drying her hair, wrapped in a large, fuzzy towel, when Leia's blonde assistant and another woman came in.

"Hi," the blonde said brightly. "You're Jedi Solo, right?"

"That's me," Jaina said. "Jaina Solo."

"I'm Lieutenant Kaydel Connix," the blonde said, then gestured to the woman with her. "This is Jessika Pava."

"Nice to meet you," that one added. "Call me Jess, or Testor."

Jaina finished wringing out her hair. "Will do. I'll be out of your way in a second."

"Oh, no," Kaydel said. "General Organa sent me to find you. She said she was hoping to talk to you in Command when you're ready."

"Oh, alright. Thanks."

Jess peeled off to use one of the stalls. Jaina stepped behind a changing curtain with her freshly-laundered clothes. Kaydel spoke to her through it.

"I have to say, even if Snap is being obnoxious, the rest of us are excited that there are some Jedi around. I've never met a Jedi before."

Jaina pulled her--Kyp's--shirt on and tucked it into her pants. Then she stuck her head back through the curtain. "Not even Luke Skywalker?"

Kaydel shook her head. "No. He disappeared long before I joined the Resistance. I've only been here two years. Do you know him?"

Jaina hesitated before answering. "Yes" would be a lie, but so would "no".

"Quit harassing her, Kay," Jess said from her stall. "You want to know about Luke Skywalker, talk to the general."

The young officer looked chagrined. Jaina smiled faintly and said, "Can anyone really say they know Luke Skywalker? It's been a long time, anyway. Can't really say I know him now."

She pushed the curtain back and sat on the bench that ran the length of the area, to pull on socks and boots. The lieutenant seemed fascinated with her every move.

"Can I help you with something?" she asked Kaydel finally.

"Oh... I was just wondering... I saw you talking to Commander Dameron yesterday..."

Jaina recognized the tone, held in a smile, and said, "About my ship and my military career. Jedi Master Durron and I are... a couple."

And wasn't that a strange thing to say?

Finally, she strapped on her belt, with blaster and lightsaber. Jess came out of her stall, saw the lightsaber, and asked, "This is a stupid question, but can we see the lightsaber?"

Jaina laughed. "I guess you haven't seen one before."

She pulled the weapon from her belt and, pointing straight up, turned it on with the familiar, surprisingly comforting _snap-hiss_. Her weapon was purple, which she supposed appropriate: neither Sith red or typical Jedi blue, nor her uncle's vivid green like new plant growth. Kyp's weapon was nearly the same color, just a slightly more red, which was also appropriate. He was once a Sith, and she herself had gone dark for a time.

Ironic that Kyp, known across _their_ galaxy as the Monster of Carida, had been her salvation.

"That is really wizard," Jess said. "Why do I have the urge to touch it?"

Jaina turned the lightsaber off and clipped it back on her belt. "I wouldn't. You'd lose your fingers."

Message delivered, the two women left Jaina to finish getting ready. She combed her hair and braided a section of it, drawing it across the top to hold the rest of her hair back and out of her face, securing it with a pin she kept a small collection of in her flight bag.

She paused in the doorway of the “cafeteria”, her heart fluttering at the sight of Kyp. He was seated at a table, with two trays and two mugs of caf, waiting for her. It was clear why he'd got her tray for her: there was a big line and the prepped food was looking a little low. That he'd thought to do it meant a lot.

She studied him as she crossed the room. Their link was still open, so he had to know she was there. But he didn't look up from his datapad. His silver-threaded black curls were damp, leaving water spots on the shoulders of his pale blue shirt, and she reflected that other men might have dyed their hair to cover the grey, but he didn't. When she'd been younger, she'd thought him vain. But if he really were, the grey would have been the first thing to go.

Lines creased the corners of his eyes, and a little across his forehead, the corners of his mouth, age finally catching up with the Jedi. She didn't mind, though, she realized. He was a man, not a boy.

He looked up as she reached the table, and his smile lit the world. “Hi,” he said, and pushed her mug of caf to her. “I hope it's still relatively hot.”

She'd expected awkwardness after the night they'd shared together, but there was none. He was still just Kyp, except now he was her Kyp. The first time she'd slept with Jag, the morning after had been something she still cringed about.

Kyp caught a flicker of the thought and raised a brow. She shook her head, their hands brushing as she took the mug.

“Thanks. I could use this. We've been summoned by the general. She wants- Well, she summoned me specifically, but I don't intend to hold any meetings without you.” She looked at him over the rim of her mug. “Partner.”

“Guess we finally figured out what that means,” was all he said.

They ate in silence, and quickly, neither wanting to keep Leia waiting. Kyp hadn't closed their bond, just scaled it back a little so it wasn't distracting. Jaina had never thought being linked to someone else so intimately would be comfortable, but it was.

Kyp's hand brushed hers, but he didn't openly take it. She knew he wanted to. She sent him a little nudge through the Force, and he smiled.

Leia was waiting in the command center, dressed simply in a jumpsuit and vest, with no visible rank insignia. She looked up when they entered. “Thank you for coming so quickly. As you can see, we’re in the middle of removing the equipment, so I don't have much time.”

“You wanted to see us?” Jaina put the tiniest emphasis on “us”, telling Leia that she and Kyp were a package deal.

Of course, Kyp's body language could have told the general that, his hand hovering at the small of Jaina's back, with next to no personal space between them. It would be absolutely no secret that Kyp had spent the night in Jaina's quarters.

“Yes. I know that your first priority will be attempting to return home, but I'm making a formal request, that if you're unable to do so, would you join the Resistance and help us fight the First Order? We're desperately in need of help.”

The two Jedi were of one mind in it, literally. There was no discussion needed.

“Of course,” Jaina said. “We can hardly sit back and do nothing.”

The relief on Leia's face was immense. “Thank you.”

A Sullustan with a hoversled came in and said something to the general. Threepio butted in.

“We can't disconnect the command computer yet, the Jedi haven't seen the computer simulation!”

Oh. Right.

Jaina gestured. “Let's see it, then, Goldenrod.”

Leia looked sharply at Jaina, but she didn't say anything to her. Instead, she said, “Yes, please, Threepio. I'd like to see this.”

Going from the data gathered by the two astromechs from their sensors and those of the two StealthXs, Threepio had programmed a reconstruction of the rift. The simulation was in little green dots, and did nothing to convey the sheer terror Jaina had felt in the moment.

It spiralled open into a huge funnel, sucked in the two tiny dots that represented the X-Wings, then folded in on itself. The data cut out before it completely collapsed.

They watched the simulation a few times, unable to see in the data any trigger. Frustrated, Jaina leaned her hands on the edge of the big, round projector and sighed.

“What was that, a wormhole?”

They looked up as Poe Dameron entered. He was dressed in his red-orange flightsuit. Gesturing to the display, he said, “Run it again.”

“Certainly, Commander,” Threepio said primly.

Poe's dark eyes watched the simulation. Silently, he gestured for it again. And a third time. “Whole thing took less than thirty seconds,” he said. “That's an awfully narrow window. Talk about wrong place, wrong time.”

“No kidding,” Kyp murmured.

Threepio downloaded the data for both readings and simulation onto a portable drive, which Jaina took. The Sullustan asked if he could begin moving the console.

Techs quickly unplugged the huge computer and began dismantling it. The most awkward piece was the projector dish in the middle, attached to a load of electronics underneath. It weighed at least four hundred pounds.

“We haven't had to move this thing in some time,” Leia commented. “We might need a few droids-”

Kyp gestured and the projector dish lifted into the air, floated over to the hoversled, and settled without a single wobble.

“Now you're just showing off,” Jaina commented.

He smirked. A moment later, everything in the room, excluding the people, rose a foot in the air. “No,” he said, “that was showing off.”

Jaina shouldn't have been surprised. She'd known since she was nineteen that he could move black holes. He'd been thirty-three at the time. At nearly fifty, he did more to hold himself in check, needing only to release the power instead of summoning it.

But still. The reminder that her lover was the most powerful telekinetic she'd ever met was impressive. 

Their kids were going to be insanely gifted.

She blinked at the thought, and it apparently reached Kyp, because he abruptly dropped everything, catching it all just before it crashed down. He turned wide green eyes to her, but she studiously ignored him, flustered by her train of thought.

“Smooth,” Poe drawled.

Mentally, Jaina kicked herself. Less than twenty-four hours together, and she was already considering kids? She was so kriffing vaped.

"If we could dial the testosterone down a little," Leia said mildly. "As I said, we're moving the base. But I'm guessing you want to go back to where Starkiller Base was and have a look."

"Yes," Jaina said. "That was our hope."

“If you don't mind, General,” Poe said, “I'd like to go with these two and have a look myself.”

“Making sure we don't turn out to be with the First Order after all?” Kyp asked.

“Nah. I believe you if the general does. I'm just curious myself.”

Leia obviously struggled not to roll her eyes. “Go. But meet us at the next hideout.”

“Where to?” Poe asked.

“Yavin,” Leia said. She turned to Jaina. “You know it?”

“Know it? I used to live there. The academy was there.” Jaina's gaze cut to Kyp. “It's probably different now.”

Unspoken was that if Luke had never had his Jedi praxeum on Yavin in this reality, there was a very real possibility that Exar Kun’s spirit still lurked on the jungle moon.

He gave her a tight nod. If they had to, they'd deal with him. Kyp wasn't an impressionable sixteen-year-old novice anymore. He was a Jedi Master, had been a Jedi for more years than Luke had even been alive at the time.

“Maybe different, I dunno. My dad still lives there,” Poe said.

Kyp and Jaina exchanged looks.

“What?” Poe asked.

“Nothing,” Kyp said. “Probably nothing.”

\----------

Rowdy trundled along after Jaina on the way to her StealthX, beeping and booping along the way. She only half-listened; though she understood binary, she was too distracted to pay attention to Rowdy's complaints of how prissy Threepio was.

After she'd lifted the droid into his space in the X-Wing, Jaina she climbed the ladder up to the cockpit, which Rowdy opened for her. She put her flight bag behind the seat, then picked her helmet up off the seat and rubbed a gloved hand over the black finish. It was dark, like the fighter, to prevent reflected light from giving away her X-Wing’s position. Small lettering on the left side said “Solo”. The right side had a little red emblem of the Jedi Order.

Inside the helmet, she'd tucked a plast-laminated picture, which she'd carried with her since she was sixteen. It depicted her family the last time the five of them had been together before the Vong war started: Han and Leia, the fourteen-year-old Anakin, and Jaina and her twin, Jacen. Her brothers were gone now, both of them. And if she were stuck here, in this strange reality, so were her parents.

She rubbed a thumb over her brothers’ images, Jacen holding two fingers up behind Anakin's head, both grinning broadly.

“You okay?” Kyp asked, from the foot of her ladder.

Jaina tucked the photograph back into her helmet. “Yeah.”

He reached up, lightly touched her leg just above the top of her boot. Didn't say anything, just let her know he cared. Then he went to his own StealthX.

As Jaina settled into her seat and put her helmet on, she reflected that Jag hadn't been into any sort of public display of affection. No kisses, no hand holding, barely even a stray touch. The one exception that came to mind was when they'd been at the beach on Mon Cal when she was twenty, around the time she'd nearly died on Bakura. He'd still been reserved, but he'd relaxed a little.

Kyp, on the other hand, had no qualms about it. Obviously. She blushed a little at the memory of that kiss, in front of the whole base. It had been unexpected but wonderful. Jaina didn't like feeling as if she were hiding a relationship. When she'd been with Jag, she'd longed to be open about it. It had been one of their constant sources of contention.

She looked over to where Kyp sat, presumably going through his preflight checks. She had started hers on autopilot while distracted, but everything looked good.

She felt the brush of Kyp's mind against hers, and nudged him back, smiled when he sent her the mental equivalent of a hug.

It was going to be incredibly easy to fall head over heels for him. She'd already lost her footing.

With a sigh, she flipped her comms on. “Saber Lead, all systems go.”

“Saber Two, all in the green,” Kyp said.

“Uh, I'm good to go,” Poe said after a moment.

“Not used to being subordinate, Dameron?” Jaina asked sweetly.

“No, I'm not, _Colonel_ ,” he shot back.

She grinned. “For the time being, you're Saber Three, but Kyp and I are pretty cooperative. We won't hold it against you if you forget your place.”

Kyp snorted audibly over the comms. Poe drawled, “Gee, thanks.”

She pulled up on the yoke stick and her StealthX smoothly left the ground. Her fighter had been specially equipped with the mechanism, since she favored it. Kyp's X-Wing had the two-handed wheel grip. He lifted off a fraction of a second after she did, and Poe followed after a handful more.

The comm crackled, Leia's voice coming through. "Saber Lead, this is Command. You are clear for departure. We'll see you at Base."

Jaina clicked over and said, "Acknowledged, Command."

"And may the Force be with you."

Jaina had to swallow hard, remembering the many times her mother had said that to her. She knew it was pretty standard, but still.

Kyp's mind tugged at hers, and she gave him a mental signal that she was okay. He withdrew.

Then she pointed the nose of her X-Wing towards the sky, and stomped on the thruster pedal.


	5. Chapter 5

**\--Chapter Five--**

Due to their not knowing if First Order forces were still in the system, they planned an approach on the far side, which required a few jumps extra. During one recalculation, Poe decided to chat.

“So Jaina told me she grew up on Coruscant,” he said. “Must have been swanky. What about you, Durron? Grow up in luxury, too?”

Kyp knew Poe was just making conversation, wasn't _trying_ to be annoying. He shoved down his irritation and said, “Spent my first eight years on Deyer, in the Anoat system. Spent the next eight in Kessel. My parents died there.”

There was a long silence from the Resistance pilot. “Man, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to shoot my mouth off.”

“It's fine. You couldn't know.”

Then Poe made a speculative noise. “Deyer, you said? My mom was from Deyer. My dad is, was, her second husband, said the Empire killed her first husband, her kid, while stomping out a little group of protestors. It's what made her join the Rebellion and meet my dad.”

Kyp’s brow furrowed. “That's rough. How old are you, Dameron?”

“Thirty-two. I was born two years before the Battle of Endor. Parents raised me on Yavin. At least until Mom died when I was eight.”

“No kidding? What was her name?”

“Shara Bey.”

It was Kyp's turn to stare at his controls in silence. It was Jaina who broke it.

By _laughing_.

“Oh, stang,” she giggled over the comm. “This is all kinds of hilarious. I'm sorry, I'm not laughing about your mother, Poe, it's just…”

“What is it?” Poe asked, sounding offended anyway.

Kyp cleared his throat. “My mother's name was Shara.”

Jaina guffawed. “You guys are half-brothers!”

Poe radiated shock through the Force. He didn't say anything; his silence spoke volumes. Given that Deyer's colony had been pretty small, the coincidence was too much.

Kyp snorted. “Goddess, I love you, but please shut up.”

She only laughed harder. “Actually, I think Poe is this universe’s answer to you, Kyp.”

He sighed. “Well, that would explain a lot,” he said.

Poe, who was still clearly shocked by the turn in this conversation, asked, “Explain what?”

“Your Force sensitivity,” Kyp drawled. “How do you think you're the Resistance’s top pilot?”

“... Really?”

“Dead serious. You interested in learning to use it?” Kyp asked.

Excitement replaced the surprise in the other pilot’s voice. “Can I? Of course!”

Jaina clicked over to the private channel. “You want to take him on as apprentice?” she inquired. “Or should I?”

“I will. I'm not sure you have the patience for him.”

“I'm not sure _you_ do,” she retorted. “We could do it as a team.”

He considered that. “That'll work. Master Solo,” he added.

“Luke hadn't given me that title yet.”

“Luke isn't here. I'm the only council member here, and I say you earned it. So did the others, we just hadn't made it official.”

“For what, killing my brother?”

He reached out to her, offering his love and support. He felt her resist for a moment, then felt her relent as she sighed.

Poe, on the open frequency, said, “Guys?”

Kyp clicked back over. “We were discussing who gets to train you.”

“And?”

Jaina said, “We're both going to do it. We’ll see what your strengths are and go from there.”

“What, were you using the Force to discuss this?”

She chuckled. “No. These StealthX fighters, which were made just for the Jedi a few years back, have built-in ship to ship communicators. We usually don't use them, since the comms give us away. These ships are meant to be flown only by Jedi, because we can communicate with the Force.”

“That's really cool. What other gadgets do they have? Why are they called stealth X-Wings, besides being black and invisible in space?”

“They've got cloaking, sort of,” Kyp told him.

“How do fighters that small have cloaking devices?” Poe was incredulous.

“Not exactly cloaking,” Jaina said. “But they have sensor negators, gravitic modulators, photon absorbers, and thermal dissipators.”

“We had to develop a bunch of tech in the war with the Vong,” Kyp added. “When the enemy can't be felt in the Force and their fighters are equipped with weapons that open black holes, you gotta get creative.”

“I don't wanna run into one of those,” Poe said.

“Really don't,” Jaina agreed.

“So if your comms are off, you're invisible?”

“Pretty much,” Kyp said. “They run on TibbanaX, which burns black out the thrusters, if you haven't noticed. Which reminds me, we may have to ground these if we're here too long. Don't know if they have our fuel here.”

“Yeah, that's a potential problem. We could probably retrofit for whatever fuel is available here if we need to, though I'm not sure how backwards, or sideways, compatible parts are going to be. I'll need to take apart the fuel system of one of the T-70s and have a look.”

“What talent _don't_ you have?” Poe asked. “Pilot, Jedi, mechanic.”

“I can't sing,” she said after a moment.

Kyp snickered. “She really can't.”

"Okay, boys," Jaina cut in. "Calculations are up. Transmitting. Jump in three... two... one."

\----------

The reversion from hyperspace was a little jerky due to the altered gravitational fields in the system. Jaina hushed Rowdy as she angled her fighter away from the new star, heading towards the old one.

It had never had a chance to go nova, all of its fuel sucked away by the Starkiller Base, leaving it to collapse into a misshapen ball of heavy metals. The immense cold of space had hardened the outside, though Rowdy’s sensors told her that the core of it was still technically molten. It didn't have the energy to explode, and it would likely take centuries, even millennia, for the planet-sized iron ball to cool.

“All I'm reading are residual heat signatures from the old star and the new one,” Poe told them.

“Same here,” Kyp reported. “Nothing like what we picked up before within this system.”

“Long-range reports the same,” Jaina sighed.

Kyp's voice was carefully neutral as he said, “I think this was a one-way trip, Goddess. If the theory holds that this star going out unnaturally opened the rift somehow, we'd need to know the exact time and place of a similar event on our side, given the thirty-second window.”

“There hasn't been an unnatural star death on our side in thirty-two years,” she said in exasperation.

Kyp was quiet for a long moment, and Jaina realized what she'd said.

 _Sorry_ , she sent through the Force. _Didn't mean it that way_.

Most Force communication happened in pictures, impressions. Sometimes, in really strong bonds, short sentences were possible. She hoped Kyp got the gist of what she'd sent, at the very least.

There was a hesitation, then he sent back, _I know. True, though_.

Aloud, Jaina muttered something that sounded like Chiss. Kyp asked, “Captain Cardboard teach you that one?”

“Kyp,” she said, with a little exasperation.

“Oh, right. _Head of State_ Cardboard, sorry.”

She bit her lip to keep from grinning. It was stupid, and it was intended as an insult towards someone she still cared about, but the Cardboard thing had been running so long, it only made her laugh these days.

"And no," she said, "it was his sister."

"Who's 'Cardboard'?" Poe inquired.

"My ex," Jaina sighed. "Jagged Fel, the current Head of State for the Imperial Remnant back in our reality. Unlike the First Order, we're actually civil with them and they're not..."

"Homicidal control freaks?" the Resistance pilot suggested.

"Not as a whole, but Jag has his moments," Kyp said darkly.

She rolled her eyes. "Control freak, yes. Homicidal, not so much. If we're stuck here, Kyp and I need clothes. We weren't planning on starting over in a new reality with one change each.”

“Well, Coruscant is probably out, they're mostly loyal to the First Order these days,” Poe said. “Yavin has nothing. It's still a colony world full of little ranches.”

“How's Hapes looking?” Jaina asked.

“I don't think I've even heard of Hapes,” Poe confessed. “Where is it?”

“It's a Core world, on the Yavin side,” Kyp put in. “Technically, Hapes is just one planet, but it rules over sixty-two others in nearby systems. In our reality, Jaina is good friends with the Queen Mother.”

Poe was quiet for a moment. “Sixty-three worlds? I'd imagine they have a pretty big fleet.”

“Enormous,” Jaina said. “We could go there, scope things out, see who the present Queen Mother is. I doubt it's Ta’a Chume, she was ancient fifteen years ago.”

“I dunno, that woman is nasty enough to cling to as much power as she can for as long as she can,” Kyp said. “But yeah, I say we have a look, see where their inclinations lie.”

Jaina, who had the coordinates memorized, transmitted them to the other fighters. “Oh, and boys? I'm in charge on this one. Hapes is a matriarchal society. I mean it pretty literally when I say that, to be safe, don't speak unless spoken to.”

“That isn't fair,” Poe said.

“Not all things in life are,” Kyp pointed out. “We'll follow your lead, Goddess.”

“I'm not saying it to be bossy, I'm saying that men are literally possessions on Hapes. You'll need to be respectful and obedient, always walk behind me at least a pace, and act as my servants. If they're loyal to the First Order, one wrong move could get us killed.”

Finally, Poe said, “Gee, this sounds like so much fun!”

Kyp clicked over to the private channel. “You want to see if Tenel Ka exists here.”

“That and I want some decent food.”

\----------

Getting to Hapes inconspicuously wasn't exactly easy while flying X-Wings, but as luck would have it, there was a small contingent of Republic ships in orbit when they reached their destination.

"Probably here to make sure the ambassador or senator is home safe," Poe said. "And wasn't on Hosnian Prime when it was destroyed."

"That or recruiting a new one," Kyp said darkly. "'Hey, sorry your senator got blown up. Wanna give us a new one?'"

Poe let out a snort-laugh noise Jaina had heard Kyp make before, usually when she said something really scandalous and he couldn’t believe it had come out of _her_ mouth.

"Okay, let's try to stay out of the way as much as we can," she said. 

They landed their ships near a New Republic transport at a general airfield, so that they would look like they were with them. Jaina had yet to get a clear answer on why there even _was_ a Resistance, since the First Order was clearly an enemy of the New Republic. But then, she'd been involved in a few secret groups in her years, most notably during the Yuuzhan Vong war, when the New Republic's _public_ stance had been one of neutrality or attempted reconciliation with the invaders that were systematically destroying them.

As she'd told them to, the men stayed a few steps behind her, Kyp being closer as her "personal servant". Jaina carried nothing, which actually bothered her a little. She was used to pulling her own weight. But Kyp didn't mind, just had her flightbag over his shoulder.

“I actually haven't been back to Hapes since Allana was born,” Jaina mused as they walked along a wide promenade lined with tall buildings. Those buildings had shops along the lower levels and residences on the higher ones. “Well, after that, since I had to deal with the Killik thing first.”

Kyp snorted. “That whole arm-rubbing thing was unnerving, but also kind of amusing.”

“Arm-rubbing?” Poe asked.

Jaina made a face. “To make a very long story short, some friends and I were brainwashed into joining this faction of bug people, who greeted each other by rubbing arms.” She demonstrated with Kyp. “It took a good year to break myself of the habit.”

“... And who is Allana?”

“My friend Tenel Ka’s daughter. My niece, actually.”

Kyp started, eyes going wide. Jaina snickered. “You didn't know that?” she asked.

“No, I actually didn't.”

“Yeah, she was Jacen's. I knew immediately, and Mom and Dad didn't try to keep it from me. I mean, she kinda feels like Jacen, so...”

She stopped suddenly. “Ooh. Um. You go on and find a place to stay. I need to look at something.”

Kyp glanced the way she'd been looking, but couldn't see what had caught her attention. “You sure we should be splitting up?”

“It'll just be a few minutes. And I think there's a hotel the next block over.” Jaina waved him and Poe away. “I'll catch up.”

“If you're sure…”

The two men reluctantly left, and Jaina hurried into the shop they'd just passed. A length of red shimmersilk had caught her eye, and her face split in a grin when she saw the dress.

Then her face fell. It was perfect, but she had no way to pay for it. She lightly touched the skirt, expression wistful.

“You're thinking of buying that for Kyp, huh?”

At Poe's voice, she turned. “It's… There's a long story behind it, but I once had one nearly identical to this. This is so stupid. I've got money and credits, but I'm pretty sure they won't work here.”

Poe checked out the price of the dress, and let out a low whistle. “Let me see the money. The credits might not work, but most places take hard cash.”

Jaina pulled out the wallet she kept in an inner pocket of her jacket and opened it. She had a mix of notes crammed in it, from various cultures. Poe took the stack and went through it.

“Valid, valid, worthless, iffy, valid, also worthless… Tell you what. I've got pay I haven't used in ages, why don't you let me help you out with this, and you can pay me back when you start getting money from the general?”

Jaina frowned. “Why would you do that?”

“‘Cause I'm a nice guy. Besides, I _am_ a guy and I'm curious about how you look in the dress, too.”

She pretended to punch him in the arm.

Poe laughed. “Really, though, I know you and Kyp have it tough right now. If I can help you have a bit of home, I'm willing to do that.”

“How are you still single, Dameron?” she asked.

“Haven't met the right girl yet. Kinda difficult, being in the Resistance.”

“I know how that is.”

He inclined his head. “Go try it on. If it doesn't fit, this whole thing is moot.”

\----------

“There's a ball tonight at the palace,” Jaina said as she and Poe met up with Kyp. “I figure you and I can get dressed up and sneak in, do a little spying.”

“Sounds entertaining,” he commented. “What's in the bag?”

“Clothes. You'll need to get something to wear, too. Do you carry much in the way of money, not credits?”

“Usually. You never know what you might need them.”

Poe spoke up. “We'll go while you get dressed up.”

“That works,” Kyp said amiably. “I found a hotel with a suite vacancy. We’re on level eight, room 803.”

\----------

The room Kyp had booked--using Hapan credits, though why he had so many, Jaina didn't know--was really nice. It was a two bedroom suite, with a sitting room in the middle. The bedroom she and Kyp had featured a gigantic bed, an enormous tub in the 'fresher, and a multi-head sonic shower.

"Sometimes," Jaina said, as she looked around, "I forget how luxurious Hapes is."

Poe dragged Kyp out of their suite so Jaina could get ready. They'd invited him to the ball, but he said he didn't want to be in the way. “Besides, I can't remember the last time I got to sleep in a real bed and eat food other than rations on the base. This is a vacation. I'm gonna order room service and watch some holovids.”

Jaina was not a fussy person inclined towards fashion and fancy things. She knew how to style her hair and do her makeup because her position as the daughter of the Chief of State had pretty much required her to, but unless she had some function to attend, she rarely bothered.

But she wanted to make herself up tonight, to go with the dress. The dress demanded more than lip balm and a braid.

She was just finishing her hair when she heard the men return. Jaina pushed the last hairpin into place and checked her makeup in the mirror. Smokey eyes and a bold red lip were the extent of it, but the look was sultry. With curls tumbling around her face and shoulders, she felt… Pretty. Sexy, even. More confident in this than she had at nineteen.

Smiling to herself, Jaina slipped on the ridiculous shoes that the shop girl had insisted she purchase with the dress. They added quite a bit to her petite height, but were difficult to walk in.

“We run into trouble,” she muttered, “and I'm ditching these things.”

There was a knock on the door. “Jay?” came Kyp's voice through it.

“Just a minute!”

She stuffed her datapad, commlink, and lightsaber into the oversized red clutch and closed it. Taking a steadying breath, she went to the door and opened it.

Kyp had her back to her, dressed in black pants tucked into high black boots, and a nearly-black, dark red shirt. He and Poe were deep in conversation.

Poe's eyes widened and he motioned to Kyp. The older man turned. The moment he saw her, his green eyes turned dark.

“You like it?” Jaina asked.

One corner of his mouth lifted. "You sure you can channel the Force in that?" he asked, and Jaina knew he'd recognized it, knew its significance.

"I think I can manage," she drawled. "Now, how are we getting into this thing?"


	6. Chapter 6

**\--Chapter Six--**  
  
Getting in turned out to be incredibly easy. The door was guarded by a few weak-minded servants checking invitations, and one little push from Kyp and they were in.  
  
"It should alarm me how good you are at that," she murmured, "but it doesn't."  
  
"Hey, I'm the one that taught _you_ to do it, so ..."  
  
"I'm aware, _Master_ ," Jaina breathed. He grinned wickedly.  
  
Hapes wasn't as strict in its men-are-lesser views as Dathomir was, or even Kuat, but the male was still subordinate. Kyp knew that and stuck to his position just behind Jaina's elbow as they mingled.  
  
A light, sweeping melody of Mon Cal origin began to play, and Kyp offered his hand to Jaina. She placed her hand in his and let him draw her onto the dance floor.  
  
"I didn't know you could dance," she remarked.  
  
"I had to learn a while back," he told him.  
  
The dress she wore was floor-length, with a little train, but somehow, with Kyp guiding her around the circle, Jaina didn't trip. She'd danced with Jag before, also in this very ballroom, a lifetime ago and an entire universe away.  
  
She was different now, irrevocably changed by everything that had changed in that time, and she had no desire to be that angry, astonishingly naive girl ever again.  
  
They were there for reconnaissance, but for a few minutes, she could pretend that they were just two ordinary people, there to have some fun and enjoy each others' company. It wasn't a slow dance like at some club on Coruscant that catered to romance, so she couldn't rest her head on his chest and just sway in his arms, but it was still nice.  
  
"I never liked these functions," she told him, speaking under her breath and using the Force so that reached only his ears. "First there was growing up on Coruscant, the daughter of the president. Then there were the visits to Tenel Ka."  
  
"I've almost always lucked out and not had to go." He frowned a little. "But I've dated a few women who insisted I take them to things."  
  
The shoes with their high, narrow heels evened their height difference a bit, but Jaina still had to look up to see his face. Not that he was tall. He was only two or three centimetres taller than her uncle. Even so, Jaina herself was petite.  
  
"Even when I wasn't with Jag, when we broke up after the war, before the Killiks mess, you didn't make a move," she said. "Why not?"  
  
He shrugged. The dark red shirt made his green eyes more vivid, the material shimmering subtly in the ballroom's light. "I didn't think it would be welcome. Would it have been?"  
  
"I don't know," she admitted. "I was just thinking about how things might have been different if we'd been together earlier."  
  
"There's no point in wandering that road, Goddess," he whispered. "'What if' is a dangerous thing."  
  
"I know," she sighed.  
  
The song ended, and they moved off the floor to wander the large room, spying on conversations to gauge the political atmosphere of the Hapes Consortium. After an hour of that, Jaina's feet were killing her.  
  
"I'm going to the 'fresher," she murmured to Kyp. "I'll be back in a bit."  
  
He nodded and sipped at his pale green Hapan wine. Jaina gave his hand a squeeze and picked her way across the ballroom on aching feet to the door where she knew--hoped, rather--there was a refresher a short distance away.  
  
As luck would have it, the refresher was still there, elegantly swathed in wood and marble, the latest technology tastefully disguised with classic Hapan design. The automatic hand dryer had her hands dry in literally three seconds, and Jaina itched to take the thing apart and see how it worked. But she didn't have time for that, or the tools, and they'd probably take a dim view of her doing that.  
  
She passed a few elegantly coiffed Hapan women, all of them gorgeous and tall, as she left the facilities. Even in the stupid shoes, she felt short. She smirked to herself, knowing that her petite size hid the Sword of the Jedi.  
  
Back in the ballroom, she took a moment to scan visually for Kyp. He wasn't where she'd left him, but she hadn't expected him to stay rooted to the spot until her return. She was just reaching for him in the Force when someone who'd approached from her left spoke.  
  
“Excuse me, my lady, but would you care to dance?”  
  
Jaina froze, heart in her throat, and looked up, starting at the man’s feet. Crisp black uniform, shiny boots, a patch of some sort of starburst on his right shoulder. Pale green eyes regarded her from under black brows, the right one bisected by a scar that carried up to his hairline, where a streak of white followed it.  
  
She knew that face, that voice. Knew this man intimately. Had called him hers off and on for nearly sixteen years.  
  
There was no recognition in his face, just polite interest. She did some quick mental math and figured he was probably twenty-six now, eight years younger than her. How odd.  
  
“My lady?” Jagged Fel repeated.  
  
To cover for her lapse, she tilted her head and said, in the Hapan that Tenel Ka had taught her in bored moments, “I am sorry, I do not speak Basic well.”  
  
He blinked, then nodded stiffly. It was clear he didn't speak the language. He demonstrated a dance move, then held out his hand.  
  
Somewhere in the crowd, Kyp had felt her shock, and his mental question was a warm brush through her mind. Kyp. The surprise and stinging shock receded as thoughts of Kyp grounded her.  
  
She looked at Jag, this reality’s version of the man she probably would have married had she stayed in her reality, and felt… A bit of nostalgia, some fondness, but that was it. Surprise at seeing him, yes, but so little in romantic feelings. Of course, a lot of that was due to this man *not being *her Jag. The rest was due to the man she'd come to the ball with.  
  
Kyp probed again, and she sent back reassurance. Her gaze fell on the patch on Jag’s shoulder. In what was probably a bad accent, and falsely halting Basic, she asked, “You are… First Order?”  
  
Jag nodded again. He smiled faintly. “I am. I am emissary to the Queen Mother, on Supreme Leader Snoke’s behalf.”  
  
Her commlink beeped. Making a show of scowling at it, she read the display. Kyp, of course. She silenced it and said to Jag, “Pardon me. I am needed other.”  
  
“Elsewhere?” the man supplied, just a hint of wry in his voice.  
  
“... Yes. Good-bye.”  
  
She turned and hurried away, pushing through the dancers on the floor, as quickly as she could without running. Not that she _could_ run in these ridiculous shoes.  
  
Kyp stood from a table he'd snagged as she approached. “You alright?” he asked. “You look like you just saw a ghost.”  
  
“No. Close. Jag,” she said breathlessly.  
  
His brow furrowed. “ _Jag_? He exists here?”  
  
There was a thread of worry in him that had nothing to do with Jag's existence itself and everything to do with Jaina. She picked up her stupid red clutch, the one with her lightsaber in it, and held it close.  
  
“Apparently, he does,” she said shortly. “And he's First Order. We need to leave, *now.”  
  
“Guess that dance has got to wait,” he sighed. “Don't rush. Don't draw attention. Give me your hand.”  
  
Jaina didn't even hesitate. She laid her hand in his and calm washed over her.  
  
Jag didn't know her, didn't know Kyp, or their allegiances. Didn't know they were Jedi. To the Imperial, she was just a pretty lady at a ball he'd asked to dance.  
  
A _taken_ pretty lady.  
  
Kyp's hand was warm, his touch soothing. She’d tried for years to put aside how comforting he was to her. There'd been a period, during the Vong war, where he'd been her best friend. The one she'd been able to count on. Not even Jag had been that.  
  
It was so strange that here, Jag meant danger and fear and worry, and Kyp… Kyp was love and safety and the one person she could trust with not only her life, but her heart.   
  
“Come on,” he murmured. “Let's go slow.”  
  
“Or we could hurry…” Jaina batted her lashes at him.  
  
Kyp grinned.  
  
“Come along, servant,” she said.  
  
They made their way out of the ballroom hand in hand, passing Jag and two other uniformed men. Jag saw her with Kyp, noted their linked hands, and raised his glass of punch sardonically.  
  
It was beyond strange to look at the man she might have married, and see not a bit of recognition in his eyes. Stranger still to have Kyp's hand in hers, for Jag to not know the true significance of it.  
  
When they got to the hallway outside, Jaina pulled Kyp down the corridor.  
  
“Door is the other direction,” he said.  
  
“I don't want to be seen leaving that way.”  
  
“Oh, right,” he said. “I haven't been in this palace in years.”  
  
“If I'm right… Yes!” Jaina drew Kyp around a corner. “This familiar to you?”  
  
He arched a brow. “The night of your brother's funeral?”  
  
She backed against the wall, pulling him with her. “I left the ball, and Jag, because Ta’a Chume wanted to talk me into marrying Isolder. Then I ran into you…”  
  
“You were so angry with me. With the universe.”  Kyp's hands skimmed her corseted sides. “But so beautiful. I wanted to kiss you. I _should_ have kissed you.”  
  
“Do it now,” she breathed. “Kiss me, Kyp.”  
  
He pinned her between his body and the cold marble of the wall, his mouth slanting over hers. Jaina twined her arms around his neck, returning the kiss with feeling.  
  
She didn't know how long they stayed like that. It could have been seconds or an eternity. But someone cleared their throat. The pair broke apart quickly.  
  
A woman wearing a purple veil over her hair regarded them with open amusement. She was tall, about Leia’s age, hair red and eyes brown. Behind her stood a retinue of five or six courtiers and bodyguards.  
  
Her accent, when she spoke, was not Hapan.  
  
“Are you lost? You should not be in this part of the palace.”  
  
Between Jaina's shock and the effects of Kyp's kiss, it took her a moment to respond. “Apologies, Queen Mother. We must have taken a wrong turn in our, ah, haste.”  
  
Jaina searched the veiled women behind Teneniel Djo, but saw no sign of her best friend. Mentally, she sighed.  
  
One of the women murmured, “Majesty, your meeting with the emissary…”  
  
Teneniel Djo looked irritated. “Yes, yes. I am aware.”  
  
The emissary. Jag.   
  
“Don't join with the First Order,” Jaina blurted.  
  
Everyone stopped and all eyes were suddenly on her. The Queen Mother didn't speak, merely raised a red-gold brow.  
  
“They destroyed the capital of the Republic,” Jaina hurried on. “The Hosnian system. That was the First Order. They're evil, Queen Mother. Don't bring that evil to Hapes. They'll crush you beneath their boot heel and take your fleet.”  
  
The Queen Mother’s mouth curved ever so slightly. “Leave us,” she said to the people with her. “You two. In here.”  
  
Kyp and Jaina exchanged glances, then followed Teneniel Djo into the very same room where, once upon a time, the woman's mother-in-law had attempted to convince nineteen-year-old Jaina to marry Prince Isolder.  
  
Jaina frowned, remembering. Ta’a Chume had had Teneniel Djo killed to make the way for Jaina, who had refused. Tenel Ka had become Queen Mother instead.  
  
“You are with the Resistance,” the queen stated. “Am I right that you were lurking in the hallway, waiting for me?”  
  
“Uh,” Kyp said.  
  
“Yes,” Jaina said quickly. “We're with the Resistance. Actually…”  
  
Going purely on instinct, Jaina pulled her lightsaber from her clutch.  
  
“I'm Jedi Master Jaina Solo, and this is Jedi Master Kyp Durron.”  
  
Teneniel Djo pulled the veil from her face. "I know Luke Skywalker. I heard of the massacre of his students. You were certainly lucky to escape that."  
  
"We weren't on-planet at the time," Kyp said, which wasn't a lie. "You're meeting with the First Order?"  
  
"Not of my choice," the Queen Mother said. "I had heard of Hosnian Prime. Our representative, fortunately, was here when it happened. I was about to send her there to protest the Republic's inaction against the First Order. Then the capital was destroyed."  
  
She shuddered, no doubt recalling the sensation of all those deaths. Jaina remembered when Fondor had been destroyed by Centerpoint Station, and how it had hurt the Queen Mother grievously back in their world, miscarrying a child because of it. Teneniel Djo had never recovered, and then she'd been murdered.  
  
The woman's grey eyes were intent on Jaina, just a natural result of her matriarchal upbringing and her place in Hapan society. "The Hapes Consortium will not bow to this First Order. I am in a delicate position and cannot openly support the Resistance, but I will do what I can."  
  
Twenty minutes later, they'd hashed out a plan to send a Resistance ship back to Hapes in a week's time and by then, the Queen Mother would have mustered what she could divert without notice.  
  
Teneniel Djo departed before them, joining up with her guards outside. The door clicked shut behind her.  
  
Jaina stood, wincing at the pinch on her toes. Kyp caught her hand, pulled her back and into his lap where he sat on the divan. His touch was suggestive, his voice low and rumbling as he said, “We should wait a bit so we’re not seen in the Queen Mother's presence. And since we have time to kill…”  
  
“Really?” she breathed. “Kyp, we have to go…”  
  
“We’ll make it quick.”  
  
\----------  
  
Anxious as she was, the idea was thrilling. When she reached down, she found him hard, straining against his pants. They hadn't made love since that first night, and she had to admit she ached for it.  
  
Jaina unfastened his fly, drawing him out, something low in her belly tightening with need at the sight of him, the feel of him. She straddled his thighs, lifting her skirt to move more freely. Leaning in, she kissed him hard on the mouth, and Kyp slid his hands down her body to cup her bottom through the crimson shimmersilk. He made a sound of pleased surprise to find she wore nothing under the gown.  
  
Moaning into his mouth, Jaina shifted over him, grinding her bare mound against his erection. Her wet folds slid over his shaft and he gasped, hips pushing up off the bench, nearly toppling her to the floor. Kyp caught her just in time and they laughed breathlessly between kisses.  
  
She rose up, holding him steady, and then sank down, impaling herself on him. “Mmm. Yeah. This is good.”  
  
As she rocked against him, finding her rhythm, Kyp lifted her breasts free of the corset, thumbs caressing her nipples. He drew the left into his mouth, sucking hard at the pink, pebbled flesh. Jaina gasped and she doubled her efforts, riding him faster. When he switched to the other side, she dug her fingers into his black curls.  
  
His hands dove under her skirt, fingers stroking over her backside, urging her on. Quiet, she reminded herself, though she wanted to moan and pant and cry out. She ground down on him, hips moving as fast as she could manage.  
  
Kyp lifted his head, mouth finding hers, fingers curving under to touch her inner thighs. It was a surprisingly wonderful sensation.  
  
“Almost,” she gasped against his lips. “Almost- So close! I'm gonna-”  
  
Then she let her head drop back, eyes closed, as the orgasm took her. After a few seconds, she opened heavy-lidded eyes and smiled, hips still undulating against him.  
  
“Force, you're beautiful,” he breathed.  
  
“Come for me, Kyp,” she whispered. “You've gotta be almost there.”  
  
“Almost,” he agreed. He leaned her back a little on the seat and began thrusting, her breasts bouncing with each one.  
  
“Yes,” she hissed. “Come on.”  
  
It took only a few seconds before he came, the release stealing his breath. Jaina caught his face in her hands and kissed him.  
  
"Yeah," she told him as she drew back. "You definitely should have kissed me. Doing that back then would have gone lightyears to sorting out my attitude."  
  
Kyp chuckled. "And your parents would have _killed_ me."  
  
"I don't think they'd have noticed."  
  
"Oh, they would have. I got warnings from both of them not to hurt you, and I hadn't even _touched_ you."  
  
He ran his hands along her thighs, slowly caressing her exposed skin. Jaina sighed.  
  
"Okay, _now_ we need to go. But I need to visit the 'fresher. Again."  
  
\----------  
  
An hour after they'd encountered the Queen Mother, the two Jedi left the palace by the back door. They had convinced the Queen Mother to refuse the First Order, and more importantly to Jaina, learned that one Tenel Ka Chume Ta’a Djo was presently on Dathomir.  
  
“I want to see her,” Jaina said quietly. “She was practically my sister-in-law.”  
  
“She doesn't know you here,” Kyp reluctantly pointed out.   
  
“I know. But if we were to recruit her…”  
  
“That's a good idea. We could use more Force-sensitives. But we need to get to the base and deal with Exar Kun, if he exists, before we start doing that.”  
  
Jaina nodded. “Call Poe. Tell him we’re on our way. We have to leave before the First Order learns about us.”  
  
There was a footfall ahead of them, and one of the First Order officers appeared, speaking into a commlink. He was too far away to have heard them, but he definitely saw them now.  
  
Kyp tugged her against his side and she let out a giggle, tipping her head to let him kiss her neck. She knew her hair was disheveled, her lips kiss-swollen. They looked exactly like she intended, a couple caught having an assignation in the palace gardens.  
  
The officer arched a brow, but paid them little heed as he went past. Jaina let out a held breath once he was gone.  
  
“Call Poe,” she said again.  
  
“About Jag-”  
  
She leaned in and kissed him. “Run now, relationship insecurities later. Not that you should _have_ any, after what we did in that sitting room.”  
  
Kyp took a moment to press his forehead to hers, then pulled out his commlink.  
  
"Dameron," Poe said, clearly having expected trouble.  
  
"Pack up. We need to leave as soon as Jaina and I get back."


	7. Chapter 7

**\--Chapter Seven--**  
  
When he got the comm from Kyp Durron, Poe immediately sprang to his feet and began clearing everything. He wasn't sure _why_ they were leaving so suddenly, just that there had been tension in the Jedi Master's voice and some distant alarm in the back of his head started going off. He'd never been one to ignore that, and he wondered if it was the Force.  
  
Poe really, really wanted to learn to use the Force. He wasn't sure if he wanted to be a Jedi, but if he was Force-sensitive, it was another sense, another skill he could use against the First Order.  
  
He crammed the rest of his food into his mouth, grateful no one was there to see him with his mouth stuffed as full as a rodent's while he scrambled to gather his things. He wasn't sure how he'd managed to spread so much across the hotel room in such a short time, but he had.  
  
He slung his packed flightbag onto one of the long, curving sofas in the main sitting room, and pondered if he should start packing the Jedis' things. No, he decided, he wasn't going to venture in there and invade their privacy. So, he dropped into a chair to wait.  
  
He didn't have to wait long. The two Jedi came in about ten minutes later, both looking grim but calm. Kyp's face was hard, focused. Jaina looked less than polished, her carefully-pinned hair now tumbling down her back, lipstick smudged. Poe smirked, not surprised. With the way she looked, if she'd been his, he wouldn't have been able to resist kissing her senseless, either.  
  
"What's the rush?" he asked, as he stood.  
  
"First Order is here. We need to be gone yesterday," Jaina said.  
  
". . . Yeah. You still got the rented speeder?"  
  
"Downstairs," Kyp confirmed, and shut the door to their room behind them.  
  
\---------  
  
Jaina had been able to get the dress on without assistance, but somehow, the laces on the side of the bodice that secured the thing had become tangled, and she couldn't get it undone. "Kyp, a little help?"  
  
He set to untangling the mess. "Not exactly how I was planning on getting you out of this," he muttered.  
  
She snickered. "Save that thought."  
  
Finally, he had the laces undone. Jaina shimmied out of the thing, letting it pool at her feet, and he sighed.  
  
"What?"  
  
He gestured to her, and Jaina suddenly realised she was wearing just her shoes. Blushing, she snatched up her regular clothes. Kyp grinned and picked the dress up off the floor.  
  
"You're terrible," she muttered as she yanked on clothes.  
  
"That's generally the consensus," he agreed amiably.  
  
When she was dressed, he tossed her the dress. She carefully folded it and tucked the scarlet material into her flight bag.  
  
"We're gonna have trouble getting all this stuff into our fighters," he remarked.  
  
"I'm smaller, there's more room in my cockpit," she said. She stooped to pull on her boots. "Okay, I think we're ready to go."  
  
"Lightsaber," he reminded her, and she jumped to retrieve it from her handbag.  
  
Jaina shook her head, hating that she was so anxious over this. The enemy didn't even know they were here, so why was she so on edge?  
  
 _You know why_ , her brain taunted. _It's because of Jag._  
  
 _Shut up,_ she told it, and stuffed the handbag into one of the shopping bags.  
  
\----------  
  
On their way out, Kyp wiped that they'd been there--under false names, anyway--from the minds of what staff they encountered. Poe expressed admiration of the skill, and Kyp muttered that they'd discuss it later.  
  
They hopped into the landspeeder, Kyp at the controls. Jaina sat in the front passenger seat, reflecting on the last time she'd ridden in a speeder here, with Kyp flying.  
  
Kyp glanced at her sideways, and she knew he was thinking the same thing. Funny how they could be on the same wavelength, when so much had changed since then.  
  
"Yeah," he said.  
  
Poe, apparently picking up on the tension, asked, "What was that?"  
  
Jaina twisted in her seat. "Personal thing. Ancient history."  
  
"It unnerves me that you guys can talk in your heads," the pilot said.  
  
"You'll learn," Kyp told him.  
  
It was a tense few minutes' ride to the airfield. The Republic ships were still there, but a few X-Wings here and there were landing or lifting off. Kyp let them out by one of the larger ones, and went to return the speeder.  
  
Jaina stooped, unzipped her dark-coloured flightsuit, and pulled it on over her pants and shirt. Poe took the time to do the same, but his was a much brighter colour, which was why they were doing this in the shadows cast by the transport.  
  
"Okay, here's the plan: You pretend to be one of the Republic X-Wings, head up with them when the next ones go. Kyp and I will meet up with you on the far side of the two moons, the one that's farther out."  
  
"You'll be invisible," he pointed out. "How will I find you?"  
  
"We'll find you," Kyp said, as he emerged from out of nowhere. "Go now. Act casual."  
  
Poe nodded and loped off to his X-Wing. Kyp pulled out his own flight suit and wriggled into it.  
  
"We've got Poe's cover," Jaina said, "but how are _we_ getting out?"  
  
Kyp smirked. "I locked security into their offices. They'll be out soon, but even if they see us, they'll be too late to do anything. Gonna have to do the short start-up."  
  
The startup for a StealthX was usually five minutes, but in an emergency, it could be shortened a bit. Jaina commed her astromech, and Kyp did the same with his.  
  
Communicating now without words, the two Jedi dashed across the distance between the Republic transport and their X-Wings. Rowdy already had Jaina's cockpit open, and she used the Force to spring up, bags in hand, to land in a crouch on the seat.  
  
Jaina shoved her flight bag behind her seat, then awkwardly crammed the flimsiplast bags from the shop in after, wincing at the thought of what that was doing to the red dress. “Why did they take a meter off the length of this thing?” she muttered. “That could have been used for cargo space. But _no_ , they had to remove the cargo and put in a gravitic modulator!”  
  
She felt Kyp's amusement through their bond and shook her head. Yanking her helmet into place, she turned and dropped down into the seat. The StealthX fighters weren't heavily armoured, since a hull of a studier material would possibly show up on sensors despite the negators that shielded the interior workings of the X-Wing.  
  
Poe had finished his startup and was even now slipping into a group of X-Wings as they headed up. Jaina watched for a moment as her own fighter warmed up.  
  
 _Opposite direction,_ she felt more than heard Kyp think.  
  
 _Into the forest?_  
  
 _Along treeline._  
  
 _Need distraction._  
  
 _Coming right up._  
  
At the far side of the landing field from where they were, a small Hapan craft rocked on its landing struts, one of which suddenly collapsed. All the security and airfield personnel not locked in the building rushed off that direction.  
  
 _That was fast,_ Jaina thought.  
  
 _Lightsaber to the hydraulic line as I went by._  
  
 _Good thinking._  
  
Rowdy tweedled that all systems were go. Jaina yanked back on the yoke and her StealthX leapt off the duracrete floor of the airfield. Kyp was only a fraction of a second behind. Before anyone could react, the two black-hulled fighters were out of the well-lit area and shooting off into the Hapan night.  
  
\----------  
  
They found Poe's X-Wing right where Jaina had told him to wait, just outside the moon's almost-negligible gravity well. He startled briefly when they fell in behind him and Jaina flipped on her comm to say, "Jump in five." But it wasn't in his voice when he said, "Acknowledged, Saber Lead."  
  
They all had Yavin's coordinates memorised, so it took only seconds to lay them in. A handful of seconds more, and the stars streaked into blue lines and then the welcome swirl of hyperspace.  
  
I HAVE NEVER BEEN TO YAVIN IV, Rowdy said, in letters across Jaina's display.  
  
"That's because it's uninhabitable these days in our world," she told him. "The Yuuzhan Vong pretty much destroyed it."  
  
I HAVE HEARD OF THESE, it responded after a few moments. BUT NOT SEEN ONE.  
  
"Yeah, pray we don't ever have to again," Jaina muttered.  
  
I AM AN ASTROMECH. I DO NOT PRAY.  
  
". . . I need to fix your personality, you're more boring than Zero-One."  
  
WHO IS ZERO-ONE?  
  
"A droid Kyp used to have. He was destroyed by the Vong at Hapes a long time ago."  
  
Jaina remembered that well, the surge of panic she'd had when Kyp had thrown his damaged X-Wing between her and the Vong, when his fighter had exploded. It had taken breathless, terrified seconds to locate him after the explosion, still alive but wounded, having gone EV just before the impact.  
  
She'd been concerned about her crush on Jag Fel in those days, but those moments, fearing Kyp dead . . . Jaina had been too afraid to admit it then, but the thought of losing him had nearly stopped her heart.  
  
It would be hours to Yavin. Jaina settled back in her seat, reached out briefly to Kyp. They connected, then he drew back, clearly intent on grabbing a few hours' sleep before they reached their destination.  
  
She decided to do the same.  
  
\----------  
  
Exiting hyperspace near the gas giant Yavin felt, to Jaina, like coming home. She stared at the orange planet as they made their way around it, homing in on the fourth moon in its orbit. When she saw the jungle moon ahead, a sharp sense of homesickness hit her.  
  
Kyp reached out, let her knew he felt it, too. They'd lost Yavin to the Yuuzhan Vong sixteen years before, the enemy tearing down the Massassi temples and killing what Jedi didn't escape. The order had largely been adrift since, finally settling with an academy on Ossus and a Temple on Coruscant. But it just wasn't the _same_ to Jaina, never had been.  
  
The Great Temple here stood proud and tall over the trees, abuzz with activity. There was a small settlement on the moon, so it hadn't been completely empty for thirty or so years, but it still felt a little dusty to Jaina as she landed her X-Wing just outside the hangar.  
  
She popped the canopy and jumped down, leaving Rowdy and her things where they were for the moment. The air was hot and humid, the jungle around them alive with all sorts of animal sounds.  
  
Jaina grinned, drinking it all in. Kyp came up beside her, slinging an arm around her shoulders, and she leaned into him, not caring that she was rumpled from hours in the cockpit, nor that her hair was plastered to her head from her helmet.  
  
"This feels like home," she whispered.  
  
"I know."  
  
"I'm going to go talk to the general about our accommodations," he said. "I have an idea I want to run by her."  
  
"Okay. I'm going to have a look at one of those T-70s, see if their fuel is compatible with our fighters. I hope it is. I know they can use both fuels back home, but . . ."  
  
"Yeah." He kissed her forehead. "Back in a bit."  
  
Jaina watched him leave, then turned as one of the Resistance flight crew approached. "Hey, I have a question about the X-Wings."  
  
"Yes, Jedi Solo?" the male Duros asked. His red eyes roved over the StealthX with admiration.  
  
"Do you guys have any TibannaX fuel?"  
  
He blinked. "TibannaX? Uh . . . That sounds familiar. I think Tendandro Arms has something with that name in development."  
  
Jaina tried to tamp down her excitement. "Really? That's owned by Lando Calrissian, right?"  
  
"That'd be the one. Him and his wife Tendra."  
  
"Excellent. Thank you. Is it alright if we leave these here for the moment? I get the feeling we're going to be relocating them soon."  
  
The Duros nodded. "Yeah, sure. I'm Dreen, by the way."  
  
"Jaina Solo. Nice to meet you."  
  
Poe strolled out of the hangar and clapped Dreen on the shoulder. "Hey, Dreen. I see Pavel's fighter needs some work. You guys mind if Solo here takes a look at it?"  
  
"Nah, go right ahead. We're a little short-staffed as it is."  
  
Dreen directed Jaina to the X-Wing, and headed off to take care of something on the other side of the hangar. Jaina and Poe headed towards Jess Pavel's X-Wing. The pilot was there, looking over the ship with a glowrod.  
  
"Hey, Testor, Solo wants a gander at your X-Wing's guts," Poe told the woman.  
  
Jess turned, pulling off her goggles. "Uh. Sure. What for?"  
  
"I'm not familiar with the workings of a T-70," Jaina said. "So I want to have a look, if you'll let me. Eventually I'm gonna take Poe's apart, too."  
  
"Hey!" that one protested.  
  
Jess laughed and handed Jaina the glowrod. "Go for it. I'm gonna hit the showers. Don't crosswire anything."  
  
"The day I do something that stupid is the day I go blind," Jaina said, mentally adding "again". She hadn't forgotten the accident when she was seventeen. Her X-Wing had been destroyed in the same battle that had killed her friend and wingmate, Anni Capstan. Jaina had drifted while EV into the ion wash of another fighter and been blind for weeks.  
  
She propelled herself up with the Force, crouching on the hull of the X-Wing. It was longer in the frame than her fighter by a good metre, but it didn't have any cargo space, either. An adjustable turbo laser cannon occupied the space.  
  
Poe climbed the ladder, folding his arms on the edge of the cockpit as he watched Jaina open the engine compartment and shine the glowrod in. “Why does Durron call you Goddess?”  
  
Jaina looked up with a crooked smile. “The Yuuzhan Vong had this pair of deity, twin brother and sister, Yun-Yammka and Yun-Harla. To piss them off, we styled me as Yun-Harla and implied my twin, Jacen, was Yun-Yammka. Kyp and my ex, Jag Fel, were my personal servants. Kyp kept with it for ages afterwards to tease me.”  
  
“You've known each other a while, I take it.”  
  
“Since I was two.”  
  
Poe arched a brow. “And that isn't weird for you?”  
  
“No.”  
  
He nodded. “Your twin, this Jacen. You said he was killed by some Sith Lord?”  
  
Jaina looked down. She swallowed the lump in her throat and focused for several moments on examining the shielding around the hyperdrive. As far as she could tell so far, aside from the shape of the nacelles, the interlocking S-foils, the laser cannon, and the astromech mount, it was still pretty close to a T-65. “Kinda. I didn't want to mention it to Leia, especially after learning about Kylo Ren.”  
  
Poe’s dark eyes searched her face. “Jacen _was_ the Sith Lord.”  
  
After a moment, Jaina nodded. “He killed Luke's wife, Mara, and took the name Darth Caedus.”  
  
Poe boosted himself up, crouching just behind the cockpit. “You had to kill your brother,” he stated, keeping his voice low. “You said you defeated Caedus, but if he was your twin-”  
  
“Yeah. I did. I had to kill my own twin. Happy?”  
  
Poe shook his head. “Not in the slightest. I'm sorry, Jaina. That isn't something anyone should have to do.”  
  
Kyp came loping in from outside, and in the orange-tinted light spilling in from the open hangar door, Jaina could see the resemblance between him and Poe. The black curls had to come from their mother. But they also had the same brow line and mouth, though Poe's eyebrows were thicker than Kyp's, heavier.  
  
It pleased her that Poe didn't seem put off by the idea that Kyp was possibly his brother. Kyp needed family. Leia hadn't outright rejected _her_ , which was small comfort. If she _had_...  
  
Jaina forced her thoughts away from that. She closed the engine compartment and dropped down to the floor of the hangar, turning to her lover. “So. How are things looking?”  
  
“The north temple is still standing, though I can't attest to how, uh, clean it is. I didn't want to go in alone and possibly get stuck. There's a clearing big enough for our fighters, if we want to keep them there.”  
  
Kyp gestured the way he'd come. “Doesn't have anything we’re used to, but Leia says we can use it. I get the feeling she doesn't really want us in her way.”  
  
“Nah, you're not in the way,” Poe said, as he climbed down the ladder. “I've known the general a long time. She wants to give you space so _we’re_ not in the way.”  
  
Jaina poked Kyp in the arm. “You're still thinking she's the Leia that doesn't like you.”  
  
Kyp caught her hand, took a moment to marvel that she was letting him hold it. “It's taking time to get used to not being glared at constantly.”  
  
Poe arched a brow. “What'd you do to tick her off?”  
  
“Oh, this and that,” Kyp evaded. “I'm an irritant, apparently.”  
  
“You argued constantly with her brother, called her son a pacifistic idiot, and kept flirting with her teenage daughter,” Jaina said dryly. “Of course she didn't like you.”  
  
Poe snickered. “That'd do it. Were you *trying* to get murdered?”  
  
“Not particularly,” Kyp said, “though I did have a death wish for a while.”  
  
Jaina squeezed his hand. “Speaking of, we should go check that out if we're going to do any training.”  
  
“Check what out?” Poe asked.  
  
The Jedi exchanged looks. “Actually, this is something we might need to discuss with Leia later,” Kyp said. “If we're right. We'll be back in a few hours.”  
  
“You need backup?”  
  
Kyp pulled his lightsaber from his belt and ignited it, studied the purple blade. “I think we've got this. If we need backup, though, we'll let you know.”


	8. Chapter 8

**\--Chapter Eight--**  
  
A hike of a good hour brought them through a jungle that hadn't seen humans in well over thirty years. They detoured briefly when they spotted an old TIE fighter, but the Imperial pilot who'd crashed in it was dead inside the cockpit, long-since turned to bone.  
  
“He survived in our reality,” Jaina said. "Qorl."  
  
“And tried to kill you.”  
  
“Well, yeah.”  
  
They reached the edge of a glassy lake, one with a small island in the middle of it. On that island stood a small temple, of black obsidian, with a statue of equally dark stone standing before it. It rose in sharp spikes, not in steps like the Massassi temples elsewhere.   
  
“Ah, shavit,” Kyp muttered. “He's here. I don't think he's awake, but he's here. I can feel him.”  
  
Jaina took his hand, laced her fingers through his. “He lost last time.”  
  
“To more than two Jedi.”  
  
“They were untrained. We’re not, _Master_ Durron.”  
  
He looked over at her, his anxiety instantly calmed by the confidence and love on her face. She hadn't said it yet, but it was there in her eyes.  
  
“We can't do anything while he's asleep,” he said after a moment. “So we have to wait until he wakes on his own, or we have to rattle his cage.”  
  
“Let's wait first, explain to Leia and Poe, and do what we can to prepare first. The stronger we can get Poe before making a move, the better.”  
  
“I wish Luke were here,” he said after a moment. “Our Luke. I don't know this Luke, what he's like. Especially after twelve years in isolation.”  
  
“I know. But you and I are pros at defeating Sith. It's what we do. Come on. This place is creeping me out.”  
  
\----------  
  
“Exar Kun?” Leia repeated, frowning.  
  
“Yes. He's … A long-dead Sith Lord whose spirit managed to linger here,” Kyp told her. “Back home, we defeated him years ago, but he's still dormant here. He preyed on new trainees, fed their anger and in turn fed on them. He killed one of my fellow students, Gantoris, before the rest got together and destroyed him. Jay and I can probably handle him on our own, but we wanted to warn you that he's here. Our training Poe might get his attention.”  
  
“I won't let him corrupt me,” Poe said.  
  
Jaina tipped her head, sizing him up. “No, you seem nicely stable. No hidden anger or other issues. Everyone else he targeted, they were more vulnerable. But he’ll try. He’ll offer quicker ways, easier ways. He’ll lie and tell you that we're holding you back, that we're jealous of your potential.”  
  
Kyp nodded, remembering. “He'll probably tell you that the Light is weak, that the Dark is stronger, better. It's true that the Dark can make you _feel_ more powerful, but it isn't true. Anger, hate, fear, all negative emotions fuel certain Force abilities, and strong emotions give a boost in the moment. So it does seem easier. But it also drains you, takes away from your life force and from your body.”  
  
Leia's eyes narrowed. “It sounds like you speak from experience.”  
  
“Some,” Kyp admitted. “I was one of the students Kun went after. I was angry with the Empire for my parents, for my brother. Actually, anger doesn't _begin_ to cover how much I hated them. I was young and stupid and felt Luke didn't know what he was doing. Kun nearly killed me, possessed me and tried to use me to kill Luke. He failed. Han helped me get free.”  
  
He hadn't had to tell them any of that. He still wasn't going to say anything about Carida. There was no point in it. That he still carried the weight was enough.  
  
“And you're sure you can handle him now?” Leia asked.  
  
“I'm hopeful. To say confidently that I'm sure I can would be incredibly stupid. I know my abilities. I know Jaina's, and I know that we've both faced temptation and resisted. He'll test us, and he'll do his best to fight us. We may need your help. We'll probably need Poe's help when it comes to it. But neither of us are broken teenagers anymore, and we're stronger together.”  
  
The general sighed. “Train him. If this Kun wakes up, I want to know everything. Don't say it's Jedi business and keep me in the dark.”  
  
Jaina shook her head. “Of course. You'll know what we know. He might target _you_ , but he'll probably go after Poe. Poe's younger, more . . . not vulnerable, necessarily, but malleable.”  
  
"I'm not a kid," Poe said. "I'm an adult."  
  
She gave him a pointed look and said, "So was Darth Caedus."  
  
He fell silent.  
  
"We'll get settled in at the Temple of the Blue Leaf Cluster," Kyp said, "and we'll start Poe's training tomorrow."  
  
"Are you sure you don't want rooms here?" Leia asked.  
  
"We'll make do," he said.  
  
She looked skeptical, then said, "Take a mouse droid, at least. You'll probably need it."  
  
\----------  
  
Before the Yuuzhan Vong had destroyed the Jedi Academy on Yavin IV, back in the reality that Kyp and Jaina had come from, the north temple hadn't seen a lot of general use. It had mostly been the home of Kam and Tionne Solusar, fellow students of Kyp's from that first class and headmasters of the school once events in the galaxy had called Luke away. Kirana Ti, a Jedi from Dathomir, had also made her home there while training, though she'd eventually gone back to her homeworld to oversee the school there.  
  
Here, the Temple of the Blue Leaf Cluster had seen no use after the Rebellion occupation and had sat mostly empty probably since Exar Kun's reign had ended. Three thousand years was a lot of dust and grime.  
  
“... We could take rooms in the Great Temple,” Jaina said, after scanning the interior of the two floor structure. “I'll bet your old room is still there, even. Everything else looked identical.”  
  
“I want to be away from the distractions,” Kyp said. “We're close enough to eat meals there, but while training Poe, we're going to need some quiet.”  
  
Jaina wrinkled her nose. “Well. It isn't like we haven't had crummy accommodations before. Borleias was pretty rustic.”  
  
“Let's at least get this main room cleared out and some cots set up. Then we'll see about the rest.”  
  
“You think we're going to be here a while.”  
  
His green eyes were serious as he regarded her in the dim interior. “I don't think we're going to make it back to our world, Jaina. I think we're here for good.”  
  
She looked down at the dusty floor. "Yeah. I get the same feeling. I don't want to be here, but . . . The odds of reproducing that wormhole are so . . ."  
  
"I know." Kyp sighed. "You want to get the computer system working, while I . . . do the heavy lifting?"  
  
Nodding, Jaina set her luggage on the floor and retrieved her toolkit out of it. Rowdy trundled over and extended his computer interface arm, beeping to offer his help. Kyp's astromech took himself off to inspect other power ports.  
  
"Wiring seems to have been updated while the Rebellion was here," Jaina said. "Computer is a little sluggish, but it's working."  
  
"That's good."  
  
The Resistance wasn't equipped with beds larger than single-person inflating sleep couches, which amounted to a sturdy folding platform and a durable mattress that expanded from a pack. Armed with pillows and blankets, the Jedi set up two cots and pushed them together to form one larger bed.  
  
As Jaina tinkered with the loaned comm system she was installing, she glanced over to where Kyp was busy layering blankets on the bed. There hadn't even been a question of them sleeping apart. They were together now, and Jaina wanted to keep him close. He was all she had left.  
  
And with the imminent spectre of Exar Kun lurking, she wanted Kyp in sight as much as possible.  
  
“If we _were_ to go back,” he said suddenly, “would it change anything?”  
  
“Change what?”  
  
“Us.”  
  
Jaina looked up to find him watching her, sitting on the edge of the bed, expression guarded. “Sort of. I mean… This wouldn't change. You and me. I've made my choice and even if we did go home, I wouldn't go back on that. But it would change things around us.”  
  
“Your mom would be upset.”  
  
“And Dad would be thrilled.”  
  
Kyp's brows rose in surprise. “He would?”  
  
“Yeah, he's about as fond of Jag as Mom is of you. He just knows not to say anything to her about it. But back when Mom shot Jag down, with the Killik mess, Dad told him he'd always preferred you.”  
  
Kyp grinned.  
  
“Don't let it go to your head,” she warned. “It's always been _my_ choice.”  
  
He sobered. “And you chose Jag.”  
  
“Because he was the safer choice,” she said after a minute. “The less scary one. Closer to my age, more…”  
  
“Stable?”  
  
“Predictable. He had a certain viewpoint, a way of doing things. I could generally see how he'd approach things. I needed something like that when I was younger. _You_ scared the hell out of me.”  
  
“I did?”  
  
Jaina set down her tools and went to him. “From the moment I went and found you, before Sernpidal, I found myself feeling things and thinking things that really unsettled me. It was like being at the top of a really tall building, standing near the railing, and that moment when you think about jumping. Not because you want to kill yourself, but because your brain wonders about what would happen.”  
  
He nodded.  
  
“Jag didn't give me that feeling. I didn't have to wonder ‘what if’ with him. He was the safety of the railing. Yeah, he was cute and I liked him and I will admit, the sex was good.”  
  
Kyp snorted.  
  
“Not as good as with you. But part of me knew that if I took that step with you, if I fell, I'd either fly or I'd die. You had the potential to consume me, and I was nineteen and not anywhere near ready for that.”  
  
“Are you ready now?” he whispered.  
  
Jaina put a knee up on the mattress, leaning in to run her fingers through his hair. She cupped the back of his head and brushed her lips over his. “The moment you kissed me, I went over the railing. Don't let me hit the bottom, even if I've fallen.”  
  
“Never,” he breathed.  
  
She kissed him, lips parting in invitation. He accepted, pulling her to him so that she sat in his lap, facing him. Through the Force, he opened to her, found her there and waiting, letting him know everything she felt.  
  
He dragged his mouth from hers, panted, “Say it, Jaina. I need to hear it.”  
  
Jaina nuzzled him, nose to nose. “I love you.”  
  
Kyp rolled to pin her beneath him, bracing himself on his hands. "I love you, Jay," he breathed. "Whatever happens here, I want you to know that."  
  
"I know, and I've never doubted," she said, and pulled him down.  
  
\----------  
  
“I want to make love with you,” Jaina whispered. “That first time was amazing, but…”  
  
Kyp pressed his mouth to the pulse point just under her ear. “Yeah. I know.”  
  
He sat up and pulled off his shirt. Jaina levered upright, running her hands over his chest. Kyp wasn't as muscled as Jag, but she didn't care. His body was beautiful to her, and she wanted to know every inch of it.  
  
“It used to scare me,” she told him, “the way being near you made me think of comfort and safety, but also the desperate need to have you. I've never just … Been near someone and thought ‘I want you’ like I have with you.”  
  
“Not even Jag?”  
  
She thought about it. “Jag is complicated. Looking back, I don't know that he and I ever were anything except sex. That didn't scare me. That was simple and pretty easy. That sex wasn't part of our relationship and my brain kept straying to it? That did.”  
  
Kyp tangled his fingers in her hair. “I tried for so long to turn off the part of me that needs you. I couldn't do it.”  
  
“Me, either.” Jaina peeled off her shirt. Kyp's hands went to her breasts, cupped them. “But what I mean is, all those times when you'd walk in and say hello, and I'd get cranky and storm off? That wasn't you doing anything. That was me having a gut reaction to suddenly picturing you over me, inside me, this need to drag you to the floor and just…”  
  
He laughed. “I always wondered. We'd be fine, and then you'd suddenly start snarling and run away.”  
  
“Remember that briefing before Ylesia, when I was so vicious to you? I was thinking about you kissing me, and I couldn't leave the briefing. I'm sorry I took my sexual frustration out on you that way.”  
  
Kyp snickered. He leaned in and pressed his mouth to hers. She parted her lips, rising up to kiss him back.  
  
She wasn't going to tell him that minutes later, she'd run into Jag in her quarters, that he'd kissed her in the dark and she'd tossed him across the room, before deciding to vent her pent-up need on the man. Jag was a safe target. Kyp had not been.  
  
But Kyp was no longer off-limits, and as he kissed her, desire pooled low in her belly. He tipped her back on the bed, weighing her down, and she wrapped herself around him. The sensation of being skin to skin was incredible.  
  
Finally being free to touch him, to tell him she loved him and to not worry about what anyone else thought, had her heart soaring. Even if they did get back to their reality one day, she would not give him up.  
  
“I feel complete now,” she told him as he pulled back to sprinkle kisses over her neck and shoulders.  
  
“Yeah?” he breathed, pausing to look at her with those green eyes she loved so much.  
  
Jaina touched his face. “Yeah. You, me, this. It's what I've always been missing. And somehow, I always knew it.”  
  
Kyp kissed her collarbone. “How so?”  
  
“Surely you noticed I have a type?”  
  
He pushed up on an arm, frowning in thought. “What, guys with green eyes?”  
  
“Green eyes, black hair…” She ran her fingers through his curls. “Zekk and Jag, as much as I've cared for them? Pale imitations of you.”  
  
His palm cupped her mound, the heel of his hand pressing against her, rocking just enough to make her gasp. He pressed his lips to her ear. “How many times did you fuck him, imagining it was me inside you? How many times did you have to let him take you from behind, so you could pretend it was me making you come? How many times did you have to bite your pillow to keep from screaming my name?”  
  
Jaina pushed up against his hand, groaning, “Too many! I shouldn't have.”  
  
He rubbed hard circles over her clit, through her pants. His eyes were dark with desire. “Any time, Jaina. You could have had me any time.”  
  
“I need you now,” she breathed. “Please.”  
  
He moved to pull her boots off and dropped them on the floor. Then he unzipped the fly of her pants and eased them down her hips. Jaina pushed up so he could pull the fabric over her thighs. He arched a brow at her lack of underthings.  
  
"We left Hapes in a hurry," she said. "I dressed fast."  
  
"Mm." Kyp slid his hands up her legs. "I wanted to strip that dress off you."  
  
"I'll wear it again," she promised. Jaina levered up, grabbing the back of his neck and dragging him in for a kiss. "You're still wearing too much."  
  
He laughed and pulled back to stand. Jaina rolled to her knees, fingers finding the hidden fasteners of his shirt. She got it halfway undone before she tugged the hem of it out of his waistband, letting him shed it while she concentrated on the fly of his pants.  
  
His half-hard erection bobbed free and Jaina was immediately distracted, reaching for him. She wrapped her fingers around him, lovingly stroking his shaft. Kyp tipped her head up with a finger under her chin and leaned in to kiss her. Jaina grinned against his mouth, hand still working lazily over him.  
  
He stepped back after a minute or so and sat to remove his boots, and then finished taking off his pants. Jaina shifted behind him on the bed, wrapping her arms around him. He leaned his head back to look up at her.  
  
“Part of me still can't believe we're doing this,” she murmured.  
  
She ran her hands down his chest, tugging at his earlobe with her teeth. “I don't think I can ever get enough of you.”  
  
Kyp twisted, grabbing her as he rolled into the bed, pressing her into the mattress with his larger body. Jaina gasped and twined her legs around his hips.  
  
“I know I can't get enough of you,” he told her.  
  
She smoothed her hands down his back. "I love you. I always have, somehow. I was just scared."  
  
"It's okay. I get it." He pressed kisses along the curve of her jaw, down the side of her neck. "You were nineteen and wounded. I was fourteen years older and unreliable."  
  
"No. You've always been there for me when I needed you. I just wasn't ready."  
  
She rolled him over, a move only possible on the larger bed, and straddled his hips. "I'm ready now."  
  
Holding him steady, Jaina sank down onto him, taking him as deep as she could. She sighed at the pleasant stretch. It had always taken her a while to be ready for Jag, as much as she'd enjoyed sex with him, but with Kyp... Her body had always wanted him, even when her heart was reluctant.  
  
She bent, bracing her hands on the pillow beneath his head, and rolled her hips. There was no rush to this, and she wanted to take her time, unlike on Hapes.  
  
Kyp fondled her breasts, teasing her nipples. Her body was no longer that of the slim, compact youth, though she was still petite. Her breasts had filled out, her hips curved more, a woman now instead of the teenager she'd been.  
  
He apparently tired of her slow rhythm, because he made a frustrated sound and flipped her to her back. Jaina laughed breathlessly as he surged into her, arching beneath him with a groan.  
  
"Mine," he said, in that husky way that turned her to jelly.  
  
"And you're mine," she whispered.  
  
She wrapped her arms around him and let him led the way. Wherever he went, she'd follow.  
  
\----------  
  
Jaina woke suddenly, blinking in the dark. Beside her, Kyp jerked in sleep, restless in his dream. She touched his arm, felt his tension and the fear that held him in his nightmare.  
  
She gave him a gentle shake, saying his name. He woke with a start and a gasp.  
  
“It's just a nightmare,” she whispered. “You alright?”  
  
Kyp sat up, saying, “Lights, dim.”  
  
The simple lighting unit responded, bathing the room in low blue-tinted light. Kyp dragged his fingers through his silver-streaked curls and leaned his elbows on his knees.  
  
“I was fighting Exar Kun,” he said after a few moments. “He'd killed Poe and Leia, turned you and me against each other. He wanted to use me, since I've come into all my power, to take my body and go against Snoke.”  
  
Jaina wrapped her arms around him. “That will never happen,” she told him. “Never.”  
  
“How can you be sure?”  
  
“Because I love you, and I have since Hapes the first time around. Even if I couldn't admit it and I've pushed it away all these years. Nothing has changed that and nothing will.” She kissed his shoulder. “You and I are stronger together than anything this galaxy can throw at us.”  
  
“You seem really confident about that.”  
  
Jaina smiled, resting her cheek against his back. “We've overcome everything else, and our bond is deeper now than it was on Borleias.”  
  
“I nearly killed it when I tricked you about Sernpidal.”  
  
Jaina lifted her head, moving to kneel and press her lips to his jaw. “I was angry. But time and distance showed me why you did what you did. I forgave you a long time ago. If we hadn't destroyed that worldship, they would have been able to flee to it after Anakin died. He would have died for nothing, Kyp.”  
  
He reached up and wrapped a hand around her wrist, fingers lightly rubbing her skin. “You blamed me for manipulating you. Implied I'd made you feel things towards me. I didn't. I lied about the worldship, but this between us has always been real.”  
  
“I know.”  
  
She pulled him back down on the bed, stretching out beside him. Lovingly, Jaina traced the lines of his face with her fingertips.  
  
“Don't go borrowing trouble, Kyp. For right now, let's just take things as they come. The Force brought us here for a reason, but since we don't know what that is yet, and we don't have any real commitments to the Resistance, let's just be for a while.”  
  
"We'll start training Poe," he said, and yawned. "We can't leave him defenseless."  
  
"No, we can't. And maybe we can find Tenel Ka, train her. And maybe find others. If Tenel Ka exists, if Jag exists, maybe others do, too."  
  
"About Jag-"  
  
She shook her head. "No. I mean, besides the fact that I've chosen you, and he isn't even the Jag we know, he's way too young for me."  
  
Kyp snorted a laugh. "I'm fourteen years older than you."  
  
"I don't go for younger guys," she said. "And I told you, you're the one I want now."  
  
He tugged her close. Jaina closed her eyes, one arm around his waist.  
  
"Go back to sleep," she whispered. "Everything can wait until morning."  
  
"Mm. Yeah."  
  
But despite her brave words, a thread of fear wove through her. What if Kyp's dream wasn't just a dream? What if it was a premonition?  
  
The thought chased her into restless sleep.


	9. Chapter 9

**\--Chapter Nine--**  
  
Getting the various bits of plumbing in the refresher to work the next morning was an adventure. Jaina was pretty sure the water wasn't safe to consume, so they headed over to the Great Temple to use a refresher there.  
  
They took turns, Jaina going first. He'd suggesting conserving water, but she'd just laughed at him. After showering by himself, Kyp emerged from the stall and grabbed a towel, rubbing his hair with it. He paused when he realized Jaina was wearing the shirt he'd brought to wear. "Hey, that's mine."  
  
"Uh-huh. Your point?"  
  
"Are you going to take all my shirts?" he asked. "Do you intend to make me walk around shirtless all the time?"  
  
"Curses," Jaina deadpanned. "You've figured out my wicked master plan."  
  
He crossed the small room and grabbed a handful of the material. "I need my shirt, Jaina. Give it back."  
  
She grinned. "Make me."  
  
Kyp backed her against the sink, eyes full of heat. He caught the hem of the shirt in his hands and lifted. Jaina offered no protest, raising her arms.  
  
Any further plans were interrupted when the commlink he'd set on the counter went off. Muttering under his breath, Kyp snatched it up.  
  
"Durron."  
  
"It's Dameron. I figured you'd be up for the day now. When are we starting?"  
  
Kyp made a face at the commlink. "Give us fifteen and we'll meet you in the cafeteria."  
  
"Got it."  
  
Poe clicked off, and Kyp set the commlink down. "Well, there goes my morning."  
  
Jaina laughed. "We don't have time for that, anyway. I'm sure others are waiting for a turn in here."  
  
He sighed. "Okay. But we're getting our refresher repaired as soon as we can."  
  
\----------  
  
After a quick breakfast, Poe said that he wanted to check on something and would meet them outside. Jaina let Kyp take her hand as they went out to wait for him.  
  
"I've been thinking about this Kylo Ren," Kyp said. "It's clear that emotionally, Leia isn't prepared to deal with him. I mean, he killed her husband and she still wants to redeem him, which . . . I don't see happening. That may be why we're here. To deal with him ourselves."  
  
Jaina shrugged. “Why not? Hell, I've already killed a Sith Lord brother in one reality, why not this one? I could start collecting them, tally them up on the side of my X-Wing.”  
  
He knew she was joking, for the most part, but her brother's death was recent enough to still bother her. "We'll add Exar Kun to that tally soon," was all he said.  
  
"Yeah."  
  
Somewhere off in the jungle, a pair of Woolamanders called to each other in their half-chitter-half-shrieking way, a sound they hadn't heard in what felt like a lifetime.  
  
“So. Kids?” Kyp said suddenly, returning to the thought he'd overheard on D’Qar.  
  
Jaina flushed. “Well. You know. Eventually. Maybe. One or two.”  
  
One corner of his mouth lifted. “Really.”  
  
She ducked her head, fingers plucking at the edge of his shirt. “Just… I don't know if you want any. I've always wanted a couple. And I'd … Really love for you to be their father. If you wanted.”  
  
He caught her face in his hands, gently lifting her head so she looked at him. “Jaina, sweetheart, nothing in this universe would make me happier.”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“When I say I love you, I don't just mean in the good times, when it's convenient. Force knows, loving you has been really inconvenient at times.” Kyp smiled a little. “I want it all, Jaina. The good times, the bad times. The late nights, the diaper changes, toys on the floor, everything. I want to be your lifemate, the father of your children. I want to grow old with you, Force willing.”  
  
Jaina looped her arms around his neck. “That sounds great to me. But I think we're getting ahead of ourselves a little. I mean, you haven't-”  
  
“Hey, guys!”  
  
Kyp muttered something in Huttese at the interruption. It was timely, though, because he wasn't completely prepared for where the conversation had been headed.  
  
They turned to see Poe coming towards them, with a companion. That was the previously-unconscious Finn, who walked slowly and a little unsteadily. But his smile was bright.  
  
“Guys, I'd like you to meet my good friend, Finn,” Poe said, as the couple broke apart. “Finn, these are the Jedi I mentioned, Masters Solo and Durron.”  
  
Kyp extended his hand to Finn. “Poe and Rey have both told us a lot about you. We're very impressed at your courage.”  
  
“Aw, no, I'm not brave,” Finn protested.  
  
“I think otherwise,” Poe said. He patted Finn on the shoulder. “Especially going up against Kylo Ren.”  
  
“Rey needed me,” Finn said simply.  
  
Jaina told him, “Doing what you have to, in spite of your fear, is the very definition of bravery.”  
  
He shrugged. Obviously anxious for another topic, he looked around. “So this is Yavin IV?”  
  
“Yup. Our current base, and where I grew up,” Poe said. “These two, as well, though that's a bit more complicated.”  
  
Finn’s dark eyes, a brown so deep they were virtually black, raked over the two Jedi, assessing. “Complicated how?”  
  
Kyp said, “That is a very good question. Take a walk with us over to our building, we’ll show you the new Jedi academy.”  
  
\----------  
  
Finn was not impressed.  
  
“This?” he said. “This is your academy.”  
  
“It used to be at the main temple, but Leia needs it,” Kyp told him. “And that's where it gets complicated.”  
  
“How?” Finn demanded.  
  
“This doesn't leave this room,” Poe told him. “Swear that, first.”  
  
“... Okay?”  
  
“Kyp and I are from an alternate universe,” Jaina began. “When the sun that Starkiller Base was drawing from died, it opened a rift, or wormhole as Poe likes to use, and pulled us through. Kyp and I are from a reality where the First Order doesn't exist and the Jedi number well over a hundred. And the big part is, which I'm not sure you noticed… This is Kyp Durron. I'm Jaina Solo.”  
  
“Han Solo,” Finn said automatically.  
  
“My father. Sort of.”  
  
“Kyp's my brother,” Poe said. “Also sort of.”  
  
The former stormtrooper looked conflicted. He wanted to believe his friend, but the tale was unbelievable.  
  
“We know how it sounds,” Kyp said. “But we're living it, so…”  
  
“You're aware that means Kylo Ren is your brother?” Finn said at last, looking at Jaina.  
  
“Unfortunately, yes.” Jaina made a face. “And yes, General Organa is aware of all of this. So is Rey, but she left to find Luke Skywalker.”  
  
Finn sighed. “Yeah, Poe told me.”  
  
He gestured to one of the chairs at the table in their makeshift “kitchen”. “Mind if I sit? I'm not used to being upright so much.”  
  
Kyp waved his hand and the chair slid over. Finn eyed it, then the Jedi Master. Finally, he sat. Jaina rolled her eyes.  
  
“She thinks I'm showing off,” Kyp said, without even looking at Jaina. “This saved you some energy.”  
  
Finn chuckled. “Hey, if I could move stuff with my mind?”  
  
Poe grabbed another chair, straddled it. “So I didn't tell you what else is up.”  
  
Since no one else had made a move to, Jaina went to the "kitchen" and fetched them all cold drinks, bottles of lomin ale she'd snagged the evening before from the main building. Even though it was cooler inside the building, they were still in the jungle. She handed them out, and Kyp wrapped an arm around her.  
  
“Thanks,” he said.  
  
“Don't expect servitude, I was thirsty,” she quipped.  
  
“Of course not, Goddess.”  
  
Finn glanced at them, then back to Poe. “So Rey's gonna be a Jedi, you're gonna be a Jedi… What am I?”  
  
“Weapons expert?” Poe suggested.  
  
“Not everyone needs to be a Jedi to make a big difference,” Jaina said, recalling her father and other non-sensitives she'd worked with over the years. Her thoughts skipped right over Jag, not wanting to contemplate him at the moment. "We can teach you to fly, to use a variety of weapons other than a blaster."  
  
Finn tipped his head, then grinned. "Sounds good to me."  
  
Then he gestured at the limited "kitchen". "You've got a heating unit and a fridge. They've got much better over at the big temple. Why are you out here?"  
  
"Privacy," Jaina said. "It's quieter, less people around. We can meditate more easily, and there aren't curious pilots asking to see my lightsaber."  
  
Poe raised his hands. "Wasn't me!"  
  
Finn gestured to the lightsaber at her hip. "So the lightsaber Rey's got, that belonged to Luke Skywalker?"  
  
"My uncle Luke, yeah. And his father, Anakin Skywalker, before him." Jaina took a pull of her ale, then said, "Usually, we build ours, but she might use that one. My aunt had an inherited lightsaber. Uh. That one, actually. Kyp's is also inherited."  
  
They explained about Exar Kun. Finn frowned, clearly troubled.  
  
"That's why they're teaching me. So he can't turn me to the Dark Side," Poe said.  
  
"Speaking of which, we should start that."  
  
Finn rose. "I should get back and rest. I'm still not up to full activity yet."  
  
Jaina offered him a hand up. "You survived a lightsaber wielded by a Sith. That's worth a little rest and relaxation."  
  
He gave her a lopsided grin. "Heh. Yeah. Hey, it was nice meeting you guys."  
  
She saw him out. When she returned, she saw that Kyp and Poe were sitting on the floor, which the mouse-droid had diligently scoured all night and that morning. She lowered herself into a sitting position just to Kyp's right.  
  
"So how does this work?" Poe asked.  
  
As Kyp began explaining the nature of the Force, and how to feel it, Jaina closed her eyes and let her breathing even out, stretching with her senses as she sank into a meditative trance. It had been a while since she'd taken the time, and it was calming.  
  
She felt Kyp, like a blazing white light, and Poe's presence somewhat dimmer. In the distance, the base felt like a hive of insects, buzzing with busy life. Further out, she touched on the non-sentient life forms in the jungle, the animals that lived there.  
  
And far off to the east, a dark and oily stain that slumbered. It reminded her of the way Jacen had felt when he'd turned to the Dark. Jaina quickly withdrew from it, shaken, and opened her eyes. Kyp was watching her, green eyes concerned, but he didn't ask.  
  
Poe had not noticed, concentrating as he was on his breathing with his eyes closed. Jaina reached out her hand, touched Kyp. He caught her hand, threaded his fingers through hers.  
  
 _I felt him,_ she said through their bond.  
  
 _I know. We'll deal with him._  
  
She just hoped they could.  
  
\----------  
  
After their daily lessons, Poe said he wanted to introduce them to someone. That someone lived a few hours' walk south-west, so they took one of the base's transports, with Poe at the controls.  
  
Their short journey brought them to a little settlement of ranches, and Poe landed the tranport at one in particular. It featured a broad, fenced pasture filled with herd animals, most of them sheep but a few nerfs scattered through. There were also a few fields of crops, and an orchard.  
  
A man at the fence nearest the house turned as he heard their approach, a battered hat in his hand. His hair was grey, tanned skin sun-worn and ruddy, and he shielded brown eyes from the afternoon light. He was dressed simply in a light brown shirt and faded pants that looked to have once been black but hovered somewhere between grey and brown.  
  
He saw Poe and his face split in a grin. Father and son embraced, and as Poe drew back, Kes Dameron’s gaze went to Kyp. He stiffened, dark eyes searching the younger man’s face, and then he looked at Poe, and back to Kyp. He'd paled a bit, and he took a step closer.  
  
“If your name isn't Durron,” he said finally, “I'll eat my hat.”  
  
Kyp's mouth dropped open. Poe looked equally surprised. Kes plunked his hat on his head and gestured for them to follow him into the house, past a gorgeous, flourishing tree that sheltered the low structure. Jaina noticed as they went under it that it had a strong Force presence, and she thought idly that it may have hidden Poe when he was young, much as the cave on Dagobah had masked Yoda.  
  
No one spoke as they entered the house. Jaina glanced around curiously, noting that it looked comfortable and lived in, with knicknacks on various surfaces and holos of Poe and his parents displayed around the central room.  
  
There was a large one of Shara Bey over the fireplace. As Jaina had suspected, she'd had dark curls, just like Kyp and Poe, though her eyes were dark. Her mouth was closer to Kyp's than Poe's, but all three shared the same straight, dark brows.  
  
Kes said, “Wait here.”  
  
He disappeared into a back room, and was only gone for a minute before returning with a holocube. He held it out to Kyp.  
  
Kyp took it, activating the cube. The first image that displayed was of a young Shara, holding a boy of about five, both of them in the arms of a man with light brown hair and green eyes. The little boy had black hair and brown eyes. Shara was visibly pregnant. The man’s eyes, nose, jaw were Kyp's.  
  
“I was Shara’s second husband,” Kes said. “The Empire killed her first family, so she joined the Rebellion. The boy there-”  
  
“Zeth,” Kyp whispered. “And Arrik Durron.”  
  
Kes’s dark eyes narrowed. “She was pregnant when Arrik and Zeth died. She lost the baby. I married her four years later. So my question is, who are you?”  
  
Kyp stared at the holo for a long time before answering. He'd never had an image of his parents, or his older brother. All he'd had were very dim memories. He felt Jaina slide her arm around him.  
  
“I'm Kyp Durron,” he told Kes. “Arrik and Shara were my parents. Except…”  
  
“So she didn't lose the baby?” Kes asked. “The Empire take you or something? She was in the medcenter for a while after the attack.”  
  
Kyp looked up at the man who was technically his stepfather. “Not… exactly. See, I was born on Deyer, and I lived there with my parents and my brother until I was eight. The Empire took Zeth. My parents were imprisoned on Kessel and died when I was nine. Zeth died at the age of twenty-two.”  
  
Poe finally spoke. The evidence for Kyp's story there before him, he believed at last. “Dad… This is gonna sound crazy, but Kyp here, and Jaina--this is Jaina Solo, and that's another story--are from another reality.”  
  
\----------  
  
They had dinner with Poe and his father that night. Kes was fascinated with their tale, and wanted to know as much as they could tell him. He wasn't the least surprised that Jaina was technically Han and Leia's daughter.  
  
"You look like her, but I can see Han in you, too. I heard about his death. That's a damn shame."  
  
"He wasn't my father here, but it's still . . . strange and difficult," Jaina admitted.  
  
He nodded. "So you two are Jedi Masters, and you're going to train Poe."  
  
"We started today," Poe said. "I'll admit that I have very little idea what I'm actually doing."  
  
"You'll pick it up quick," his father said confidently. "You always have learned fast."  
  
"And Kyp's a good teacher," Jaina put in. "A little more hands-on than most, but he taught me a lot."  
  
Poe grinned. "I don't think I want his brand of hands-on, if he's been your teacher."  
  
Jaina flushed.  
  
Kes shook his head ruefully at his only offspring. "He gets that mouth from his mother."  
  
"Tell me about her," Kyp said softly. "I don't remember much of her. I know she wasn't the same here, but I'd still like to know."  
  
The older man nodded. "Well, let's see..."  
  
Jaina leaned back in her chair, listening to Kes's tales of Shara during the Rebellion. It was clear that Poe had grown up on the stories, but he listened just as raptly as Kyp. And even though Poe and Kes's Shara wasn't really the same as Kyp's, he drank in every word.  
  
As they were leaving, they went out ahead of Poe so he could say goodbye to his father without them there. Kyp took Jaina's hand as they walked to the transport.  
  
"Sorry we spent so long talking in there," he said. "You okay?"  
  
“I'm good. I'm really happy for you. I'm not jealous, if that's what you're worried about. I've always felt bad that you didn't really have anyone but me, after Dorsk 82 died. I'm glad you've found Poe and Kes.”  
  
“At the expense of your family.”  
  
She shook her head. “No. I don't see it that way. And it's not… They're not dead. They're just… Away.”  
  
He stopped, used his hold on her hand to pull her into his arms. “You think I haven't seen the way you look at Leia?” he asked softly. “I know it hurts. You don't have to pretend with me. You don't need a façade with me. I've seen you at your worst and loved you anyway.”  
  
She dropped her forehead against his chest. “Maybe the façade is for me. I don't like feeling weak. I don't like emotional upheaval. I've had more pain and loss than one person should have to deal with.”  
  
“You're not weak.” He lifted her hair in one hand, massaged the back of her neck with the other. “Everything you've been through, and you're not a screaming wreck. That takes strength.”  
  
“A lot of that's because I've leaned on people.”  
  
“Honey, that's what friends and family are for.” Kyp kissed the top of her head.  
  
She flattened her hands on his chest and looked up. “I like that.”  
  
“Like what?”  
  
“You calling me ‘honey’. And ‘sweetheart’ and ‘goddess’. When I was little, I'd hear Dad use all these funny endearments for Mom, and I thought, the more names you have for someone, the more they mean to you. A stranger doesn't have a name in your head. Someone you don't like might get generic insults, but those aren't names.”  
  
Kyp cupped her upturned face in his hands, thumbs lightly stroking her cheeks. “I call Jag ‘Captain Cardboard’. That isn't an endearment.”  
  
Jaina laughed. “But you don't hate him.”  
  
“I've wanted to,” he said honestly, “but you're right. If I _did_ hate him, I'd have stolen you away years ago.”  
  
"Well, he's not here and I'm yours now." She slid her arms around his neck. "I'd like to think you and I would end up together even if we weren't here."  
  
"I'd like to, as well."  
  
Poe came loping across the yard. "Okay, let's go."


End file.
